LIBRARY
ERSITY OF
PAVIS
JUST READY
WILLIAM CLARK
MERIWETHER LEWIS
THE EXPEDITION
of
LEWIS AND CLARK
Reprinted from the Edition of 1814
With an Introduction and Index
By JAMES K. HOSMER, LL.D.
N
OTWITHSTANDING that in America few names
are more familiar upon the tongue than those of
Lewis and Clark, it is a singular fact that the Journals
of their expedition have for a long time been practically
unattainable. The lack thus existing, felt now more and
more as the centenary of the great exploration draws near,
this new edition has been planned to fill. The text used
is that of the 1814 edition, which must hold its place as
the only account approaching adequacy.
Dr. Hosmer, well-known for his work in Western his
tory, has furnished an Introduction, giving the events
which led up to the great expedition and showing the vast
development that has flowed from it, in a way to make
plain the profound significance of the achievement. There
lias also been added an elaborate analytic Index, a feature
which the original edition lacked.
The publishers offer this work in the belief that it will
fill all requirements and become the standard popular
edition of this great American classic.
In t<wo square octavo volumes, printed from new type of
a large clear face ', ivith new photogravure
portraits and fac -simile maps.
In box, $5.00 net; delivered, $5.36.
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THE CONQUEST
B T MR S. D T E
McLOUGHLIN fc?
OLD OREGON
A Chronicle
FOUR TH EDITION
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THE CONQUEST
The True Story of Lewis
and Clark
BT
EVA EMERT DTE
Author of
"McLoughlin and Old Oregon "
Chicago
A. C. McCLURG fcf COMPANY
1902
LIBRARY
tT^TVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
COPYRIGHT
A. C. MCCLURG & Co
1902
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
PUBLISHED Nov. 12, 1902
UNIVERSITY PRESS . JOHN WILSON
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
NOTE OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT
THE author hereby acknowledges obligation to the
Lewis and Clark families, especially to William
Hancock Clark of Washington, D.C., and John
O'Fallon Clark of St. Louis, grandsons of Governor Clark,
and to C. Harper Anderson of Ivy Depot, Virginia, the
nephew and heir of Meriwether Lewis, for letters, docu
ments, and family traditions ; to Mrs. Meriwether Lewis
Clark of Louisville and Mrs. Jefferson K. Clark of New
York, widows of Governor Clark's sons, and to more than
twenty nieces and nephews ; to Reuben Gold Thwaites of
the University of Wisconsin, for access to the valuable
Draper Collection of Clark, Boone, and Tecumseh manu
scripts, and for use of the original journals of Lewis and
Clark which Mr. Thwaites is now editing ; to George W.
Martin of the Kansas Historical Society at Topeka, for
access to the Clark letter-books covering William Clark's
correspondence for a period of thirty years; to Colonel
Reuben T. Durrett of Louisville, for access to his valuable
private library; to Mr. Horace Kephart of the Mercantile
Library, and Mr. Pierre Chouteau, St. Louis ; to the His
torical Societies of Missouri, at St. Louis and Columbia;
to Mrs. Laura Howie, for Montana manuscripts at Helena ;
to Miss Kate C. McBeth, the greatest living authority on
Nez Perce tradition ; to the descendants of Dr. Saugrain,
and to the families and friends of Sergeants Pryor, Gass,
Floyd, Ordway, and privates Bratton, Shannon, Drouillard,
of the Lewis and Clark Expedition ; also to the Librarian
of Congress for copies of Government Documents.
E. E. D.
OREGON CITY, OREGON,
September i, 1902.
CONTENTS
BOOK I
WHEN RED MEN RULED
PAGE
I. A CHILD is BORN i
II. THE CLARK HOME 7
III. EXIT DUNMORE 12
IV. THE WILDERNESS ROAD 14
V. A BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 17
VI. THE FEUDAL AGE 19
VII. KASKASKIA 24
VIII. THE SPANISH DONNA 28
IX. VlNCENNES 32
X. THE CITY OF THE STRAIT 38
XI. A PRISONER OF WAR 41
XII. Two WARS AT ONCE 43
XIII. THE KEY OF THE COUNTRY 47
XIV. BEHIND THE CURTAIN 50
XV. THE ATTACK ON ST. Louis 53
XVI. OLD CHILLICOTHE 60
XVII. "DETROIT MUST BE TAKEN" 63
XVIII. ON THE RAMPARTS 69
XIX. EXIT CORNWALLIS 72
XX. THE OLD VIRGINIA HOME 77
XXI. DOWN THE OHIO 81
XXII. MULBERRY HILL 87
XXIII. MISSISSIPPI TROUBLES 91
XXIV. ST. CLAIR 97
•XXV. THE SWORD OF "MAD ANTHONY" WAYNE 102
viii CONTENTS
PAGE
XXVI. THE SPANIARD 106
XXVII. THE BROTHERS 113
XXVIII. THE MAID OF FINCASTLE 119
* XXIX. THE PRESIDENT'S SECRETARY 122
XXX. THE PRESIDENT TALKS WITH MERIWETHER . . 131
BOOK II
INTO THE WEST
I. THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 139
II. THE KNIGHT OF THE WHITE HOUSE . . . . 144
III. RECRUITING FOR OREGON 149
IV. THE FEUD is ENDED 154
V. THE CESSION OF ST. Louis 157
VI. SERGEANT ORDWAY WRITES A LETTER . . . . 166
VII. INTO THE LAND OF ANARCHY 167
VIII. "THE Sioux! THE Sioux!" 176
IX. THE ROMANCE OF THE MANDANS . . . . . 185
X. THE FIRST DAKOTA CHRISTMAS 192
XL THE BRITISH FUR TRADERS 199
XII. FAREWELL TO FORT MANDAN 204
XIII. TOWARD THE SUNSET 208
XIV. THE SHINING MOUNTAINS 214
XV. A WOMAN PILOT 221
XVI. IDAHO 228
XVII. DOWN THE COLUMBIA 235
XVIII. FORT CLATSOP BY THE SEA 242
XIX. A WHALE ASHORE 249
XX. A RACE FOR EMPIRE 257
XXI. "A SHIP! A SHIP!" 259
XXII. BACK TO CIVILISATION 265
XXIII. CAMP CHOPUNNISH 272
XXIV. OVER THE BITTER ROOT RANGE 277
XXV. BEWARE THE BLACKFEET -279
CONTENTS ix
PAGE
XXVI. DOWN THE YELLOWSTONE 283
XXVII. THE HOME STRETCH 288
XXVIII. THE OLD STONE FORTS OF ST. Louis . . . . 296
XXIX. To WASHINGTON 3°3
XXX. THE PLAUDITS OF A NATION 307
BOOK III
THE RED HEAD CHIEF
I. THE SHADOW OF NAPOLEON 315
II. AMERICAN RULE IN ST. Louis , . 319
III. FAREWELL TO FINCASTLE 322
IV. THE BOAT HORN 327
V. A BRIDE IN ST. Louis 331
VI. THE FIRST FORT IN MONTANA 335
VII. A MYSTERY 337
VIII. A LONELY GRAVE IN TENNESSEE 343
IX. TRADE FOLLOWS THE FLAG 344
X. TECUMSEH 352
XL CLARK GUARDS THE FRONTIER 360
XII. THE STORY OF A SWORD 369
XIII. PORTAGE DES Sioux 376
XIV. "FOR OUR CHILDREN, OUR CHILDREN" .... 386
XV. Too GOOD TO THE INDIANS 390
XVI. THE RED HEAD CHIEF 397
XVII. THE GREAT COUNCIL AT PRAIRIE DU CHIEN . . 404
XVIII. THE LORDS OF THE RIVERS 415
XIX. FOUR INDIAN AMBASSADORS 421
XX. BLACK HAWK 429
XXI. A GREAT LIFE ENDS 434
XXII. THE NEW WEST 438
THE CONQUEST
Book I
WHEN RED MEN RULED
I
A CHILD IS BORN
THE old brick palace at Williamsburg was in a
tumult. The Governor tore off his wig and
stamped it under foot in rage.
" I '11 teach them, the ingrates, the rebels ! " Snatch
ing at a worn bell-cord, but carefully replacing his wig,
he stood with clinched fists and compressed lips, waiting.
" They are going to meet in Williamsburg, eh? I'll
circumvent them. These Virginia delegates ! These re
bellious colonists ! I '11 nip their little game ! The land is
ripe for insurrection. Negroes, Indians, rebels! There
are enough rumblings now. Let me but play them off
against each other, and then these colonists will know
their friends. Let but the Indians rise — like naked
chicks they '11 fly to mother wings for shelter. I '11 show
them ! I '11 thwart their hostile plans ! "
Again Lord Dunmore violently rang the bell. A ser
vant of the palace entered.
" Here, sirrah ! take this compass and dispatch a mes
senger to Daniel Boone. Bade him be gone at once to
summon in the surveyors at the Falls of the Ohio. An
Indian war is imminent. Tell him to lose no time."
The messenger bowed himself out, and a few minutes
later a horse's hoofs rang down the cobblestone path be
fore the Governor's Mansion of His Majesty's colony of
Virginia in the year of our Lord 1774.
Lord Dunmore soliloquised. "Lewis is an arrant rebel,
but he is powerful as old Warwick. I '11 give him a jour
ney to travel." Again he rang the bell and again a ser
vant swept in with low obeisance.
2 THE CONQUEST
' You, sirrah, dispatch a man as fast as horse or boat
can speed to Bottetourt. Tell Andrew Lewis to raise at
once a thousand men and march from Lewisburg across
Mt. Laurel to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Here
are his sealed orders." The messenger took the packet
and went out.
" An Indian war will bring them back. I, myself, will
lead the right wing, the pick and flower of the army.
I '11 make of the best men my own scouts. To myself
will I bind this Boone, this Kenton, Morgan, and that
young surveyor, George Rogers Clark, before these agi
tators taint their loyalty. I, myself, will lead my troops
to the Shawnee towns. Let Lewis rough it down the
Great Kanawha."
It was the sixth of June when the messenger drew rein
at Boone's door in Powell's Valley. The great frontiers
man sat smoking in his porch, meditating on the death
of that beloved son killed on the way to Kentucky. The
frightened emigrants, the first that ever tried the perilous
route, had fallen back to Powell's Valley.
Boone heard the message and looked at his faithful
wife, Rebecca, busy within the door. She nodded assent.
The messenger handed him the compass, as large as a
saucer. For a moment Boone balanced it on his hand,
then slipped it into his bosom. Out of a huge wooden
bowl on a cross-legged table near he filled his wallet with
parched corn, took his long rifle from its peg over the
door, and strode forth.
Other messengers were speeding at the hest of Lord
Dunmore, hither and yon and over the Blue Ridge.
Andrew Lewis was an old Indian fighter from Din-
widdie's day, — Dinwiddie, the blustering, scolding,
letter-writing Dinwiddie, who undertook to instruct
Andrew Lewis and George Washington how to fight
Indians ! Had not the Shawnees harried his border for
years? Had he not led rangers from Fairfax's lodge to
the farthest edge of Bottetourt ? Side by side with Wash
ington he fought at Long Meadows and spilled blood with
the rest on Braddock's field. More than forty years
before, his father, John Lewis, had led the first settlers up
A CHILD IS BORN 3
the Shenandoah. They had sown it to clover, red clover,
red, the Indians said, from the blood of red men slain
by the whites.
But what were they to do when peaceful settlers, fugi
tives from the old world, staked their farms on vacant
land only to be routed by the scalp halloo? Which was
preferable, the tyranny of kings or the Indian firestake?
Hunted humanity must choose.
The Shawnees, too, were a hunted people. Driven
from south and from north, scouted by the Cherokees,
scalped by the Iroquois, night and day they looked for a
place of rest and found it not. Beside the shining Shen
andoah, daughter of the stars, they pitched their wig
wams, only to find a new and stronger foe, the dreaded
white man. Do their best, interests would conflict.
Civilisation and savagery could not occupy the same
territory. »
And now a party of emigrants were pressing into the
Mingo country on the upper Ohio. Early in April the
family of Logan, the noted Mingo chief, was slaugh
tered by the whites. It was a dastardly deed, but what
arm had yet compassed the lawless frontier? All In
dians immediately held accountable all whites, and burn
ings and massacres began in reprisal. Here was an
Indian war at the hand of Lord Dunmore.
Few white men had gone down the Kanawha in those
days. Washington surveyed there in 1770, and two years
later George Rogers Clark carried chain and compass in
the same region. That meant settlers, — now, war.
But Lewis, blunt, irascible, shrank not. Of old Crom-
wellian stock, sternly aggressive and fiercely right, he
felt the land was his, and like the men of Bible times
went out to smite the heathen hip and thigh. Buckling
on his huge broadsword, and slipping into his tall boots
and heavy spurs, he was off.
At his call they gathered, defenders of the land be
yond the Blue Ridge, Scotch-Irish, Protestants of Pro
testants, long recognised by the Cavaliers of tidewater
Virginia as a mighty bulwark against the raiding red
men. Charles Lewis brought in his troop from Augusta,
4 THE CONQUEST
kinsfolk of the Covenanters, fundamentally democratic,
Presbyterian Irish interpreting their own Bibles, believ
ing in schools, born leaders, dominating their commu
nities and impressing their character on the nation yet
unborn.
It was August when, in hunting shirts and leggings,
they marched into rendezvous at Staunton, with long
knives in their leathern belts and rusty old firelocks above
their shoulders. In September they camped at Lewis-
burg. Flour and ammunition were packed on horses.
Three weeks of toil and travail through wilderness,
swamp, and morass, and they were at the mouth of the
Great Kanawha.
But where was Dunmore? With his thousand men
he was to march over the Braddock Road to meet them
there on the Ohio. Rumour now said he was marching
alone on the Shawne£ towns.
" And so expose himself!" ejaculated Lewis,
But just then a runner brought word from Lord Dun-
more, " Join me at the Shawnee towns."
" What does it mean? " queried Lewis of his colonels,
Charles Lewis of Augusta, Fleming of Bottetourt, Shelby
and Field of Culpepper. " It looks like a trap. Not in
vain have I grown gray in border forays. There 's some
mistake. It will leave the whole western portion of Vir
ginia unprotected."
Brief was the discussion. Before they could cross
the Ohio, guns sounded a sharp surprise. Andrew Lewis
and his men found themselves penned at Point Pleasant
without a hope of retreat. Behind them lay the Ohio and
the Kanawha, in front the woods, thick with Delawares,
Iroquois, Wyandots, Shawnees, flinging themselves upon
the entrapped army.
Daylight was just quivering in the treetops when the
battle of Point Pleasant began. At the first savage onset
Fleming, Charles Lewis, and Field lay dead. It was
surprise, ambuscade, slaughter.
Grim old Andrew Lewis lit his pipe and studied the
field while his riflemen and sharp-shooters braced them
selves behind the white-armed sycamores. There was a
A CHILD IS BORN 5
crooked run through the brush unoccupied. While the
surging foes were beating back and forth, Andrew Lewis
sent a party through that run to fall upon the Indians
from behind. A Hercules himself, he gathered up his
men with a rush, cohorns roaring. From the rear there
came an answering fire. Above the din, the voice of
Cornstalk rose, encouraging his warriors, " Be strong !
be strong!" But panic seized the Indians; they broke
and fled.
Andrew Lewis looked and the sun was going down.
Two hundred whites lay stark around him, some dead,
some yet to rise and fight on other fields. The ground
was slippery with gore; barked, hacked, and red with
blood, the white-armed sycamores waved their ghostly
hands and sighed, where all that weary day red men and
white had struggled together. And among the heaps of
Indian slain, there lay the father of a little Shawnee boy,
Tecumseh.
Cornstalk, chief of the Shawnees, Red Hawk, pride of
the Delawares, and Logan, Logan the great Mingo, were
carried along in the resistless retreat of their people, down
and over the lurid Ohio, crimson with blood and the tint
of the setting sun.
On that October day, 1774, civilisation set a milestone
westward. Lewis and his backwoodsmen had quieted the
Indians in one of the most hotly contested battles in all
the annals of Indian warfare.
" Let us go on," they said, and out of the debris of
battle, Lewis and his shattered command crossed the Ohio
to join Lord Dunmore at the Shawnee towns.
" We have defeated them. Now let us dictate peace at
their very doors," said Lewis. But Dunmore, amazed at
this success of rebel arms, sent the flying word, " Go
back. Retrace your steps. Go home."
Lewis, astounded, stopped. " Go back now? What
does the Governor mean? We must go on, to save him
if nothing else. He is in the very heart of the hostile
country." And he pressed on.
Again the messenger brought the word, " Retreat."
" Retreat?" roared Lewis, scarce believing his ears.
6 THE CONQUEST
" We 've reached this goal with hardship. We 've pur
chased a victory with blood ! " There was scorn in the
old man's voice. " March on! " he said.
But when within three miles of the Governor's camp,
Lord Dunmore himself left his command and hastened
with an Indian chief to the camp of Lewis. Dunmore
met him almost as an Indian envoy, it seemed to Lewis.
" Why have you disobeyed my orders? " thundered the
Governor, drawing his sword and reddening with rage.
" I say go back. Retrace your steps. Go home. I will
negotiate a peace. There need be no further movement
of the southern division."
His manner, his tone, that Indian! — the exhausted and
overwrought borderers snatched their bloody knives and
leaped toward the Governor. Andrew Lewis held them
back. " This is no time for a quarrel. I will return."
And amazed, enraged, silenced, Andrew Lewis began his
retreat from victory.
But suspicious murmurings rolled along the line.
" He ordered us there to betray us."
"Why is my lord safe in the enemy's country?"
" Why did the Indians fall upon us while the Gov
ernor sat in the Shawnee towns ? "
" That sword — "
Andrew Lewis seemed not to hear these ebullitions of
his men, but his front was stern and awful. As one long
after said, " The very earth seemed to tremble under his
tread."
All Virginia rang with their praises, as worn and torn
and battered with battle, Lewis led his troop into the
settlements. Leaving them to disperse to their homes
with pledge to reassemble at a moment's notice, he set
forth for Williamsburg where news might be heard of
great events. On his way he stopped at Ivy Creek near
Charlottesville, at the house of his kinsman, William
Lewis. An infant lay in the cradle, born in that very
August, while they were marching to battle.
" And what have you named the young soldier ? "
asked the grim old borderer, as he looked upon the sleep
ing child.
THE CLARK HOME 7
" Meri wether Lewis, Meri wether for his mother's
people/' answered the proud and happy father.
" And will you march with the minute men ? "
" I shall be there," said William Lewis.
II
THE CLARK HOME
HAT do you see, William? "
A red-headed boy was standing at the
door of a farmhouse on the road between
Fredericksburg and Richmond, in the valley of the
Rappahannock.
" The soldiers, mother, the soldiers! "
Excitedly the little four-year-old flew down under the
mulberry trees to greet his tall and handsome brother,
George Rogers Clark, returning from the Dunmore war.
Busy, sewing ruffles on her husband's shirt and darn
ing his long silk stockings, the mother sat, when sud
denly she heard the voice of her son with his elder
brother.
" I tell you, Jonathan, there is a storm brewing. But
I cannot take, an oath of allegiance to the King that my
duty to my country may require me to disregard. The
Governor has been good to me, I admit that. I can
not fight him — and I will not fight my own people.
Heigh-ho, for the Kentucky country."
Dropping her work, Mrs. Clark, Ann Rogers, a de
scendant of the martyr of Smithfield, and heir through
generations of " iron in the blood and granite in the back
bone," looked into the approaching, luminous eyes.
" I hope my son has been a credit to his country ? "
"A credit?" exclaimed Jonathan. "Why, mother,
Lord Dunmore has offered him a commission in the
British army ! "
" But I cannot take it," rejoined George Rogers, bend-
8 THE CONQUEST
ing to press a kiss on the cheek of his brown-eyed little
mother. " Lord Dunmore means right, but he is misun
derstood. And he swears by the King."
"And do we not all swear by the King?" almost
wrathfully exclaimed John Clark, the father, entering
the opposite door at this moment.
" Who has suffered more for the King than we self
same Cavaliers, we who have given Virginia her most
honourable name — ' The Old Dominion ' ? Let the
King but recognise us as Britons, entitled to the rights
of Englishmen, and we will swear by him to the end."
It was a long speech for John Clark, a man of few
words and intensely loyal, the feudal patriarch of this
family, and grandson of a Cavalier who came to Virginia
after the execution of Charles I. But his soul had been
stirred to the centre, by the same wrongs that had kindled
Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. These were his
friends, his neighbours, who had the same interests at
stake, and the same high love of liberty.
" If the King would have us loyal, aye, then, let him be
loyal to us, his most loyal subjects. Did not Patrick
Henry's father drink the King's health at the head of
his regiment? Did not Thomas Jefferson's grandsires
sit in the first House of Burgesses in the old church at
Jamestown, more than a century before the passage of
the Stamp Act? And who swore better by the King?
None of us came over here from choice! We came be
cause we loved our King and would not bide his enemies."
George Rogers Clark looked approvingly at his father,
and yet, he owed fealty to Lord Dunmore. Even as a
stripling he had been singled out for favours.
"I see the storm gathering," he said. " If I choose, it
must be with my people. But I need not choose, — I will
go to Kentucky."
It was the selfsame thought of Daniel Boone.
" But here are the children ! "
Nine-year-old Lucy danced to her brother, William still
clung to his hand, and their bright locks intermingled.
" Three red-headed Clarks," laughed the teasing Jona
than.
THE CLARK HOME 9
More than a century since, the first John Clark settled
on the James, a bachelor and tobacco planter. But one
day Mary Byrd of Westover tangled his heart in her
auburn curls. In every generation since, that red hair
had re-appeared.
" A strain of heroic benevolence runs through the red
headed Clarks," said an old dame who knew the family.
" They win the world and give it away."
But the dark-haired Clarks, they were the money
makers. Already Jonathan, the eldest, had served as
Clerk in the Spottsylvania Court at Fredericksburg, where
he often met Colonel George Washington. Three younger
brothers, John, Richard, and Edmund, lads from twelve
to seventeen, listened not less eagerly than Ann, Eliza
beth, Lucy, and Fanny, the sisters of this heroic family.
But George was the adventurer. When he came home
friends, neighbours, acquaintances, gathered to listen.
The border wars had kindled military ardour with deeds
to fire a thousand tales of romance and fireside narrative.
Moreover, George was a good talker. But he seemed
uncommonly depressed this night, — the choice of life
lay before him.
At sixteen George Rogers Clark had set out as a land
surveyor, like Washington and Boone and Wayne, pene
trating and mapping the western wilds.
To survey meant to command. Watched by red men
over the hills, dogged by savages in the brakes, scalped
by demons in the wood, the frontier surveyor must be
ready at any instant to drop chain and compass for the
rifle and the knife.
Like Wayne and Washington, Clark had drilled boy
troops when he and Madison were pupils together under
the old Scotch dominie, Donald Robertson, in Albemarle.
While still in his teens George and a few others, reso
lute young men, crossed the Alleghanies, went over
Braddock's route, and examined Fort Necessity where
Washington had been. They floated down the Monon-
gahela to Fort Pitt. In the angle of the rivers, overlook
ing the flood, mouldered the remains of old Fort Du
Ouesne, blown up by the French when captured by the
io THE CONQUEST
English. The mound, the moat, the angles and bastions
yet remained, but overgrown with grass, and cattle grazed
where once an attempt had been made to plant mediaeval
institutions on the sod of North America. As if born for
battles, Clark studied the ground plans.
" Two log gates swung on hinges here/' explained the
Colonel from Fort Pitt, " one opening on the water and
one on the land side with a mediaeval drawbridge. Every
night they hauled up the ponderous bridge, leaving only
a dim dark pit down deep to the water."
With comprehensive glance George Rogers Clark took
in the mechanism of intrenchments, noted the convenient
interior, with magazine, bake-house, and well in the
middle.
" So shall I build my forts." Pencil in hand the young
surveyor had the whole scheme instantly sketched. The
surprised Colonel took a second look. Seldom before had
he met so intelligent a study of fortifications.
" Are you an officer? "
" I am Major of Virginia militia under Lord Dun-
more."
With a missionary to the Indians, Clark slid down the
wild Ohio and took up a claim beyond the farthest. Here
for a year he lived as did Boone, beating his corn on a
hominy block and drying his venison before his solitary
evening fire. Then he journeyed over into the Scioto.
So, when the Dunmore war broke out, here was a
scout ready at hand for the Governor. Major Clark
knew every inch of the Braddock route and every trail
to the Shawnee towns. When a fort was needed, it was
the skilled hand and fertile brain of George Rogers Clark
that planned the bastioned stockade that became the nu
cleus of the future city of Wheeling.
Then Dunmore came by. Like a war-horse, Clark
scented the battle of Point Pleasant afar off.
" And I not there to participate ! " he groaned. But
Dunmore held him at his own side, with Morgan, Boone,
and Kenton, picked scouts of the border. When back
across the Ohio the Mingoes came flying, Clark wild,
eager, restless, was pacing before Dunmore's camp.
THE CLARK HOME n
Beaten beyond precedent by the mighty valour of An
drew Lewis, Cornstalk and his warriors came pleading
for peace.
" Why did you go to war? " asked Dunmore.
" Long, long ago there was a great battle between the
red Indians and the white ones," said Cornstalk, " and
the red Indians won. This nerved us to try again against
the whites."
But Logan refused to come.
" Go," said Lord Dunmore, to George Rogers Clark
and another, " go to the camp of the sullen chief and see
what he has to say."
They went. The great Mingo gave a vehement talk.
They took it down in pencil and, rolled in a string of
wampum, carried it back to the camp of Lord Dunmore.
In the council Clark unrolled and read the message.
Like the wail of an old Roman it rang in the woods of
Ohio.
" I appeal to any white man if ever he entered Logan's
cabin and he gave him not meat; if he ever came cold
and naked and he clothed him not. During the course
of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in
his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for
the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed
and said, ' Logan is the friend of the white man.' I had
even thought to have lived with you but for the injuries
of one man. Colonel Cresap, last Spring, in cold blood
and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan,
not even sparing my women and children. There runs
not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature.
This drove me to revenge. I have sought it; I have
killed many ; I have fully glutted my vengeance.; for my
country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not
harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan
never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save
his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not
one."
One by one, half a dozen of Clark's army comrades had
dropped in around the hickory flame, while the substance
of Logan's tale unfolded.
12 THE CONQUEST
"And was Cresap guilty?"
" No," answered George Rogers Clark, " I perceived
he was angry to hear it read so before the army and I
rallied him. I told him he must be a very great man
since the Indians shouldered him with everything that
happened."
Little William had fallen asleep, sitting in the lap of
his elder brother, but, fixed forever, his earliest memory
was of the Dunmore war. There was a silence as they
looked at the sleeping child. A little negro boy crouched
on the rug and slumbered, too. His name was York.
Ill
EXIT DUNMORE
ON the last day of that same August in which Meri-
wether Lewis was born and Andrew Lewis was
leading the Virginia volunteers against the Shaw-
nees, Patrick Henry and George Washington set out on
horseback together for Philadelphia, threading the bridle
paths of uncut forests, and fording wide and bridgeless
rivers to the Continental Congress.
It had been nine years since Patrick Henry, " alone
and unadvised," had thrilled the popular heart with his
famous first resolutions against the Stamp Act. From
the lobby of the House of Burgesses, Thomas Jefferson,
a student, looked that morning at the glowing orator and
said in his heart, " He speaks as Homer wrote." It was
an alarm bell, a call to resistance. " Csesar had his
Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the
Third " - how the staid, bewigged, beruffled old Bur
gesses rose in horror ! — " and George the Third may
profit by their example."
" Most indecent language," muttered the Burgesses as
they hurried out of the Capitol, pounding their canes on
the flagstone floor. But the young men lifted him up,
EXIT DUNMORE 13
and for a hundred years an aureole has blazed around
the name of Patrick Henry.
The Congress at Philadelphia adjourned, and the dele
gates plodded their weary way homeward through winter
mire. From his Indian war Lord Dunmore came back to
Williamsburg to watch the awakening of Virginia.
Then came that breathless day when Dunmore seized
and carried off the colony's gunpowder.
The Virginians promptly demanded its restoration.
The minute men flew to arms.
" By the living God ! " cried Dunmore, " if any insult
is offered to me or to those who have obeyed my orders,
I will declare freedom to the slaves and lay the town in
ashes."
Patrick Henry called together the horsemen of Han
over and marched upon Williamsburg. The terrified
Governor sent his wife and daughters on board a man-
of-war and fortified the palace. And on came Patrick
Henry. Word flew beyond the remotest Blue Ridge.
Five thousand men leaped to arms and marched across
country to join Patrick Henry. But at sunrise on the
second day a panting messenger from Dunmore paid him
for the gunpowder. Patrick Henry, victorious, turned
about and marched home to Hanover.
Again Lord Dunmore summoned the House of Bur
gesses. They came, grim men in hunting shirts and
rifles. Then his Lordship set a trap at the door of the
old Powder Magazine. Some young men opened it for
arms and were shot. Before daylight Lord Dunmore
evacuated the palace and fled from the wrath of the
people. On shipboard he sailed up and down for weeks,
laying waste the shores of the Chesapeake, burning Nor
folk and cannonading the fleeing inhabitants.
Andrew Lewis hastened down with his minute men.
His old Scotch ire was up as he ran along the shore.
He pointed his brass cannon at Dunmore' s flagship,
touched it off, and Lord Dunmore' s best china was shat
tered to pieces.
" Good God, that I should ever come to this ! " ex
claimed the unhappy Governor,
I4 THE CONQUEST
He slipped his cables and sailed away in a raking fire,
and with that tragic exit all the curtains of the past were
torn and through the rent the future dimly glimmered.
After Dunmore's flight, every individual of the nobler
sort felt that the responsibility of the country depended
upon him, and straightway grew to that stature. Men
looked in one another's faces and said, " We ourselves
are Kings."
Around the great fire little William Clark heard his
father and brothers discuss these events, and vividly re
membered in after years the lightning flash before the
storm. He had seen his own brothers go out to guard
Henry from the wrath of Dunmore on his way to the
second Continental Congress. And now Dunmore had
fled, and as by the irony of fate, on the day after the
signing of the Declaration of Independence, Patrick
Henry became the first American Governor of Virginia,
with headquarters at the palace.
IV
THE WILDERNESS ROAD
DANIEL BOONE threw back his head and laughed
silently.
For a hundred miles in the barrier ridge of the
Alleghanies there is but a single depression, Cumberland
Gap, where the Cumberland river breaks through, with
just room enough for the stream and a bridle path.
Through this Gap as through a door Boone passed into
the beautiful Kentucky, and there, by the dark and rush
ing water of Dick's River, George Rogers Clark and
John Floyd were encamped.
The young men leaped to their feet and strode toward
the tall, gaunt woodsman, who, axe in hand, had been
vigorously hewing right and left a/path for the pioneers.
" They are coming, — Boone' s trace must be ready.
THE WILDERNESS ROAD 15
Can you help?" Boone removed his coonskin cap and
wiped his perspiring face with a buckskin handkerchief.
His forehead was high, fine-skinned, and white.
" That is our business, — to settle the country," an
swered the young surveyors, and through the timber,
straight as the bird flies over rivers and hills, they helped
Boone with the Wilderness Road.
It was in April of 1775. Kentucky gleamed with the
dazzling dogwood as if snows had fallen on the forests.
As their axes rang in the primeval stillness, another
rover stepped out of the sycamore shadows. It was
Simon Kenton, a fair-haired boy of nineteen, with laugh
ing blue eyes that fascinated every beholder.
" Any more of ye? " inquired Boone, peering into the
distance behind him.
" None. I am alone. I come from my corn-patch on
the creek. Are you going to build?"
" Yes, when I reach a certain spring, and a bee-tree on
the Kentucky River."
" Let us see," remarked Floyd. " We may meet In
dians. I nominate Major Clark generalissimo of the
frontier."
" And Floyd surveyor-in-chief," returned Clark.
" An' thee, boy, shall be my chief guard," said Daniel
Boone, laying his kindly hand on the lad's broad shoul
der. " An' I — am the people." The Boones were
Quakers, the father of Daniel was intimate with Penn;
his uncle James came to America as Penn's private
secretary; sometimes the old hunter dropped into their
speech.
But people were coming. One Richard Henderson, at a
treaty in the hill towns of the Cherokees, had just paid ten
thousand pounds for the privilege of settling Kentucky.
Boone left before the treaty was signed and a kindly old
Cherokee chieftain took him by the hand in farewell.
" Brother," he said, " we have given you a fine land,
but I believe you will have much trouble in settling it."
They were at hand. Through the Cumberland Gap,
as through a rift in a Holland dyke, a rivulet of settlers
came trickling down the newly cut Wilderness Road.
1 6 THE CONQUEST
Under the green old trees a mighty drama was unfold
ing, a Homeric song, the epic of a nation, as they piled up
the bullet-proof cabins of Boonsboro. This rude forti
fication could not have withstood the smallest battery,
but so long as the Indians had no cannon this wooden
fort was as impregnable as the walls of a castle.
In a few weeks other forts, Harrodsburg and Logans-
port, dotted the canebrakes, and the startled buffalo stam
peded for the salt licks.
In September Boone brought out his wife and daugh
ters, the first white women that ever trod Kentucky soil.
"Ugh! ugh! ugh!"
A hundred Shawnees from their summer hunt in the
southern hills came trailing home along the Warrior's
Path, the Indian highway north and south, from Cum
berland Gap to the Scioto.
" Ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! "
They pause and point to the innumerable trackings of
men and beasts into their beloved hunting grounds. As
tonishment expands every feature. They creep along
and trace the road. They see the settlements. It can
not be mistaken, the white man has invaded their sacred
arcanum.
Amazement gives place to wrath. Every look, every
gesture bespeaks the red man's resolve.
"We will defend our country to the last; we will
give it up only with our lives."
Forthwith a runner flies over the hills to Johnson Hall
on the Mohawk. Sir William is dead, dead endeavour
ing to unravel the perplexities of the Dunmore war, but
his son, Sir Guy, meets the complaining Shawnees.
"The Cherokees sold Kentucky? That cannot be.
Kentucky belongs to the King. My father bought it for
him at Fort Stanwix, of the Iroquois. The Cherokees
have no right to sell Kentucky. Go in and take the
land." And so, around their campfires, and at the lake
forts of the British, the Shawnee-Iroquois planned to re
cover Kentucky.
A BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 17
V
A BARREL OF GUNPOWDER
SCARCELY was Jefferson home from signing the
Declaration when back from Kentucky came little
William's tall strong brother, George Rogers Clark,
elected by those far-away settlers, in June of 1776, to
represent them in the assembly of Virginia.
Cut by a thousand briars, with ragged clothes and blis
tered feet, Clark looked in at the home in Caroline and
hurried on to Williamsburg.
" The Assembly adjourned? Then I must to the Gov
ernor. Before the Assembly meets again I may effect
what I wish."
Patrick Henry was lying sick at his country-home in
Hanover when the young envoy from Kentucky was
ushered to his bedside. Pushing his reading spectacles
up into his brown wig, the Governor listened keenly as
the young man strode up and down his bed-chamber.
The scintillant brown eyes flashed. " Your cause is
good. I will give you a letter to the Council."
" Five hundredweight of gunpowder ! " The Council
lifted their eyebrows when Clark brought in his request.
" Virginia is straining every nerve to help Washing
ton; how can she be expected to waste gunpowder on
Kentucky?"
" Let us move those settlers back to Virginia at the
public expense," suggested one, " and so save the sum
that it would take to defend them in so remote a
frontier."
"Move Boone and Kenton and Logan back?" Clark
laughed. Too well he knew the tenacity of that border
germ. " So remote a frontier ? It is your own back
door. The people of Kentucky may be exterminated for
the want of this gunpowder which I at such hazard have
sought for their relief. Then what bulwark will you
18 THE CONQUEST
have to shield you from the sava'ges? The British
are employing every means to engage those Indians in
war."
Clark knew there was powder at Pittsburg. One hun
dred and thirty-six kegs had just been brought up by
Lieutenant William Linn with infinite toil from New
Orleans, the first cargo ever conveyed by white men up
the Mississippi and Ohio.
" We will lend you the powder as to friends in dis
tress, but you must be answerable for it and pay for its
transportation."
Clark shook his head, — "I cannot be answerable, nor
can I convey it through that great distance swarming
with foes."
" We can go no farther," responded the Council, con
cluding the interview. " God knows we would help you
if we could, but how do we even know that Kentucky will
belong to us ? The assistance we have already offered is
a stretch of power."
" Very well," and Clark turned on his heel. " A coun
try that is not worth defending is not worth claiming.
Since Virginia will not defend her children, they must
look elsewhere. Kentucky will take care of herself."
His words, that manner, impressed the Council. "What
will Kentucky do?"
To his surprise, the next day Clark was recalled and an
order was passed by the Virginia Council for five hun
dred pounds of gunpowder, " for the use of said inhabi
tants of Kentucki," to be delivered to him at Pittsburg.
Hardly a month old was the Declaration of Independence
when the new nation reached out to the west.
" Did you get the powder ? " was the first greeting of
young William Clark as his brother re-entered the home
in Caroline.
" Yes, and I fancy I shall get something more."
" What is it? " inquired the little diplomat, eager as his
brother for the success of his embassy.
" Recognition of Kentucky." And he did, for when he
started back Major Clark bore the word that the As
sembly of Virginia had made Kentucky a county. With
THE FEUDAL AGE 19
that fell Henderson's proprietary claim and all the land
was free.
With buoyant heart Clark and Jones, his colleague,
hastened down to Pittsburg. Seven boatmen were en
gaged and the precious cargo was launched on the Ohio.
But Indians were lurking in every inlet. Scarce were
they afloat before a canoe darted out behind, then another
and another.
With all the tremendous energy of life and duty in
their veins, Clark and his boatmen struck away and away.
For five hundred miles the chase went down the wild
Ohio. At last, eluding their pursuers, almost exhausted,
up Limestone Creek they ran, and on Kentucky soil,
dumped out the cargo and set the boat adrift.
While the Indians chased the empty canoe far down
the shore, Clark hid the' powder amid rocks and trees,
and struck out overland for help from the settlements.
At dead of night he reached Harrod's Station. Kenton
was there, and with twenty-eight others they set out for
the Creek and returned, each bearing a keg of gunpowder
on his shoulder.
VI
THE FEUDAL AGE
WHAT a summer for the little forts ! Dressed in
hunting shirt and moccasins, his rifle on his
shoulder, his tomahawk in his belt, now leading
his eager followers on the trail of the red marauders,
now galloping at the head of his horsemen to the relief
of some beleaguered station, Clark guarded Kentucky.
No life was safe beyond the walls. Armed sentinels
were ever on the watchtowers, armed guards were at
the gates. And outside, Indians lay concealed, watching
as only Indians can watch, nights and days, to cut off
the incautious settler who might step beyond the barri-
20 THE CONQUEST
cades. By instinct the settlers came to know when a foe
was near; the very dogs told it, the cattle and horses
became restless, the jay in the treetop and the wren in
the thorn-hollow chattered it. Even the night-owl hooted
it from the boughs of the ghostly old s'ycamore.
In this, the feudal age of North America, every man
became a captain and fought his own battles. Like
knights of old, each borderer, from Ticonderoga to
Wheeling and Boonsboro, sharpened his knife, primed
his flintlock, and started. No martial music or gaudy
banner, no drum or bugle, heralded the border foray.
Silent as the red man the stark hunter issued from his
wooden fort and slid among the leaves. Silent as the
panther he stole upon his prey.
But all at once the hill homes of the Cherokees emp
tied themselves to scourge Kentucky. Shawnees of the
Scioto, Chippewas of the Lakes, Delawares of the Musk-
ingum hovered on her shores.
March, April, May, June, July, August, — the days
grew hot and stifling to the people cooped up in the close
uncomfortable forts. There had been no planting, scarce
even a knock at the gate to admit some forest rover, and
still the savages sat before Boonsboro. Clark was walled
in at Harrodsburg, Logan at Logansport.
Ammunition was failing, provisions were short; now
and then there was a sally, a battle, a retreat, then the
dressing of wounds and the burial of the dead.
Every eye was watching Clark, the leader whose genius
consisted largely in producing confidence. In the height
of action he brooded over these troubles; they knew he
had plans; the powder exploit made them ready to rely
upon him to any extent. He would meet those Indians,
somewhere. Men bound with families could not leave, -
Clark was free. Timid men could not act, — Clark was
bold. Narrow men could not see, — Clark was prescient.
More than any other he had the Napoleonic eye. Glanc
ing away to the Lakes and Detroit, the scalp mar
ket of the west, he reasoned in the secrecy of his own
heart :
" These Indians are instigated by the British. Through
THE FEUDAL AGE 21
easily influenced red men they hope to annihilate our fron
tier. Never shall we be safe until we can control the
British posts."
Unknown to any he had already sent scouts to recon
noitre those very posts.
" And what have you learned ? " he whispered, when
on the darkest night of those tempestuous midsummer
days they gave the password at the gate.
"What have we learned? That the forts are negli
gently guarded ; that the French are secretly not hostile ;
that preparations are on foot for an invasion of Kentucky
with British, Indians, and artillery."
" I will give them something to do in their own coun
try," was Clark's inward comment.
Without a word of his secret intent, Clark buckled on
his sword, primed his rifle, and set out for Virginia.
With regret and fear the people saw him depart, and yet
with hope. Putting aside their 'detaining hands, " I will
surely return," he said.
With almost superhuman daring the leather-armoured
knight from the beleaguered castle in the wood ran the
gauntlet of the sleeping savages. All the Wilderness
Road was lit with bonfires, and woe to the emigrant that
passed that way. Cumberland Gap was closed; fleet-
winged he crossed the very mountain tops, where never
foot of man or beast had trod before.
Scarce noting the hickories yellow with autumn and
the oaks crimson with Indian summer, the young man
passed through Charlottesville, his birthplace, and reached
his father's house in Caroline at ten o'clock at night.
In his low trundle-bed little William heard that
brother's step and sprang to unclose the door. Like an
apparition George Rogers Clark appeared before the
family, haggard and worn with the summer's siege. All
the news of his brothers gone to the war was quickly
heard.
" And will you join them? "
" No, my field is Kentucky. To-morrow I must be at
Williamsburg."
The old colonial capital was aflame with hope and
22 THE CONQUEST
thanksgiving as Clark rode into Duke of Gloucester
Street. Burgoyne had surrendered. Men were weeping
and shouting. In the melee he met Jefferson and pro
posed to him a secret expedition. In the exhilaration of
the moment Jefferson grasped his hand, — " Let us to the
Governor."
Crowds of people were walking under the lindens of
the Governor's Palace.. Out of their midst came Doro
thea, the wife of Patrick Henry, and did the honours of
her station as gracefully as, thirty ^ears later, Dolly
Madison, her niece and namesake, did the honours of
the White House.
Again Patrick Henry pushed his reading spectacles up
into his brown wig and scanned the envoy from Kentucky.
" Well, sirrah, did you get the powder? "
" We got the powder and saved Kentucky. But for it
she would have been wiped out in this summer's siege.
All the Indians of the Lakes are there. I have a plan."
" Unfold it," said Patrick Henry.
In a few words Clark set forth his scheme of conquest.
" Destroy Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and you have
quelled the Indians. There they are fed, clothed, armed,
and urged to prey upon us. I have sent spies to recon
noitre, and have received word that assures me that their
capture is feasible."
The scintillating blue eyes burned with an inward light,
emitting fire, as Patrick Henry leaned to inquire, " What
would you do in case of a repulse? "
" Cross the Mississippi and seek protection from the
Spaniards," answered the ready chief. With his privy
council, Mason, Wythe, and Jefferson, Patrick Henry
discussed the plan, and at their instance the House of
Delegates empowered George Rogers Clark " to aid any
expedition against their western enemies."
" Everything depends upon secrecy," said the Governor
as he gave Clark his instructions and twelve hundred
pounds in Continental paper currency. " But you must
recruit your men west of the Blue Ridge; we can spare
none from here."
Kindred spirits came to Clark, — Bowman, Helm,
THE FEUDAL AGE 23
Harrod and their friends, tall riflemen with long buck-
horn-handled hunting-knives, enlisting for the west, but
no one guessing their destination.
Despite remonstrances twenty pioneer families on their
flat-boats at Redstone-Old-Fort joined their small fleet
to his. " We, too, are going to Kentucky."
Jumping in as the last boat pulled out of Pittsburg,
Captain William Linn handed Clark a letter. He broke
the seal.
' Ye gods, the very stars are for us ! The French have
joined America! "
With strange exhilaration the little band felt them
selves borne down the swift-rushing waters to the Falls
of the Ohio.
Before them blossomed a virgin world. Clark paused
while the boats clustered round. " Do you see that high,
narrow, rocky island at the head of the rapids ? It is safe
from the Indian. While the troops erect a stockade and
blockhouse, let the families clear a field and plant their
corn."
Axes rang. The odour of hawthorn filled the air.
Startled birds swept over the falls, — eagles, sea gulls,
and mammoth cranes turning up their snowy wings glit
tering in the sunlight. On the mainland, deer, bear, and
buffalo roamed under the sycamores serene as in Eden.
" Halloo-oo ! " It was the well-known call of Simon
Kenton, paddling down to Corn Island with Captain
John Montgomery and thirty Kentuckians.
" What news of the winter? "
" Boone and twenty-seven others have been captured
by the Indians."
"Boone? We are laying a trap for those very In
dians," and then and there Major Clark announced the
object of the expedition.
Some cheered the wild adventure, some trembled and
deserted in the night, but one hundred and eighty men
embarked with no baggage beyond a rifle and a wallet
of corn for each.
The snows of the Alleghanies were melting. A mil
lion rivulets leaped to the blue Ohio. It was the June
24 THE CONQUEST
rise, the river was booming. Poling his little flotilla out
into the main channel Clark and his borderers shot the
rapids at the very moment that the sun veiled itself in an
all but total eclipse at nine o'clock in the morning.
It was a dramatic dash, as on and on he sped down the
river, bank-full, running like a millrace.
VII
KASKASKIA
DOUBLE manned, relays of rowers toiled at the
oars by night and by day.
" Do you see those hunters ? "
At the mouth of the Tennessee, almost as if pre
arranged, two white men emerged from the Illinois
swamps as Clark shot by. He paused and questioned
the strangers.
" We are just from Kaskaskia. Rocheblave is alone
with neither troops nor money. The French believe you
Long Knives to be the most fierce, cruel, and bloodthirsty
savages that ever scalped a foe."
" All the better for our success. Now pilot us."
Governor Rocheblave, watching St. Louis and dream
ing of conquest, was to be rudely awakened. All along
the Mississippi he had posted spies and was watching the
Spaniard, dreaming not of Kentucky.
Out upon the open, for miles across the treeless
prairies, the hostile Indians might have seen his little
handful of one hundred and eighty men, but Clark of
twenty-six, like the Corsican of twenty-six, " with no
provisions, no munitions, no cannon, no shoes, almost
without an army," was about to change the face of three
nations.
Twilight fell as they halted opposite Kaskaskia on the
night of July 4, without a grain of corn left in their
wallets.
KASKASKIA 25
"Boys, the town must be taken to-night at all hazards."
Softly they crossed the river, — the postern gate was
open.
" Brigands ! " shouted Governor Rocheblave, leaping
from his bed at midnight when Kenton tapped him on
the shoulder. It was useless to struggle; he was bound
and secured in the old Jesuit mansion which did duty as
a fort at Kaskaskia.
" Brigands ! " screamed fat Madame Rocheblave in a
high falsetto, tumbling out of bed in her frilled nightcap
and gown. Seizing her husband's papers, plump down
upon them she sat. " No gentleman would ever enter
a lady's bed-chamber."
" Right about, face ! " laughed Kenton, marching away
the Governor. " Never let it be said that American
soldiers bothered a lady."
In revenge Madame tore up the papers, public archives,
causing much trouble in future years.
" Sacred name of God ! " cried the French habitants,
starting from their slumbers. From their windows they
saw the streets filled with men taller than any Indians.
"What do they say?"
" Keep in your houses on pain of instant death ! "
" Keep close or you will be shot ! "
In a moment arose a dreadful shriek of men, women,
and children, — "The Long Knives! The Long Knives!"
The gay little village became silent as death. Before
daylight the houses of Kaskaskia were disarmed. The
wild Virginians whooped and yelled. The timid people
quaked and shuddered.
" Grant but our lives and we will be slaves to save our
families." It was the pleading of Father Gibault, inter
ceding for his people. " Let us meet once more in the
church for a last farewell. Let not our families be sep
arated. Permit us to take food and clothing, the barest
necessities for present needs."
"Do you take us for savages?" inquired Clark in
amaze. " Do you think Americans would strip women
and children and take the bread out of their mouths ? My
countrymen never make war on the innocent. It was to
26 THE CONQUEST
protect our own wives and children that we have pene
trated this wilderness, to subdue these British posts
whence the savages are supplied with arms and ammuni
tion to murder us. We do not war against Frenchmen.
The King of France is our ally. His ships and soldiers
fight for us. Go, enjoy your religion and worship when
you please. Retain your property. Dismiss alarm. We
are your friends come to deliver you from the British."
The people trembled; then shouts arose, and wild
weeping. The bells of old Kaskaskia rang a joyous peal.
" Your rights shall be respected," continued Colonel
Clark, " but you must take the oath of allegiance to
Congress."
From that hour Father Gibault became an American,
and all his people followed.
" Let us tell the good news to Cahokia," was their next
glad cry. Sixty miles to the north lay Cahokia, opposite
the old Spanish town of St. Louis. The Kaskaskians
brought out their stoutest ponies, and on them Clark sent
off Bowman and thirty horsemen.
' The Big Knives? " Cahokia paled.
" But they come as friends," explained the Kaskas
kians.
Without a gun the gates were opened, and the de
lighted Frenchmen joyfully banqueted the Kentuckians.
The Indians were amazed. " The Great Chief of the
Long Knives has come," the rumour flew. For five
hundred miles the chiefs came to see the victorious
Americans.
" I will not give them presents. I will not court them.
Never will I seem to fear them. Let them beg for peace."
And with martial front Clark bore himself as if about to
exterminate the entire Indian population. The ruse was
successful; the Indians flocked to the Council of the
Great Chief as if drawn by a magnet.
Eagerly they leaned and listened.
" Men and warriors : I am a warrior, not a counsellor."
Holding up before them a green belt and another the
colour of blood, " Take your choice," he cried, " Peace
or War."
KASKASKIA 27
So careless that magnificent figure stood, so indifferent
to their choice, that the hearts of the red men leaped in
admiration.
" Peace, Peace, Peace," they cried.
From all directions the Indians flocked ; Clark became
apprehensive of such numbers, — Chippewas, Ottawas,
Pottawattamies, Sacs, Foxes, Maumees.
" The Big Knives are right," said the chiefs. " The
Great King of the French has come to life."
Without the firing of a gun or the loss of a life, the
great tactician subjugated red men and white. Clark
had no presents to give, — he awed the Indians. He de
voted great care to the drilling of his troops, and the na
tions sat by to gaze at the spectacle. The Frenchmen
drilled proudly with the rest.
While Clark was holding his councils Kenton had gone
to Vincennes. Three days and three nights he lay recon
noitring. He spoke with the people, then by special mes
senger sent word, " The Governor has gone to Detroit.
You can take Vincennes."
Clark was ready.
" Do not move against Vincennes," pleaded Father
Gibault, " I know my people. Let me mediate for
you."
Clark accepted Gibault' s offer, and the patriot priest
hastened away on a lean-backed pony to the Wabash.
With his people gathered in the little log church he told
the tale of a new dominion. There under the black
rafters, kissing the crucifix to the United States, the
priest absolved them from their oath of allegiance to
the British king.
" Amen," said Gibault solemnly, " we are new men.
We are Americans."
To the astonishment of the Indians the American flag
flew over the ramparts of Vincennes.
" What for? " they begged to know.
' Your old father, the King of France, has come to life
again. He is mad at you for fighting for the English.
Make peace with the Long Knives, they are friends of the
Great King."
28 THE CONQUEST
The alarmed Indians listened. Word went to all the
tribes. From the Wabash to the Mississippi, Clark, abso
lute, ruled the country, a military dictator.
But the terms of the three-months militia had expired.
" How many of you can stay with me? " he entreated.
One hundred re-enlisted; the rest were dispatched to
the Falls of the Ohio under Captain William Linn.
" Tell the people of Corn Island to remove to the main
land and erect a stockade fort." Thus was the beginning
of Louisville.
Captain John Montgomery and Levi Todd (the grand
father of the wife of Abraham Lincoln) were dispatched
with reports and Governor Rocheblave as a prisoner-of-
war to Virginia.
On arrival of the news the Virginia Assembly im
mediately created the county of Illinois, and Patrick
Henry appointed John Todd of Kentucky its first Ameri
can Governor.
VIII
THE SPANISH DONNA
IN the year that Penn camped at Philadelphia the
French reared their first bark huts at Kaskaskia, in
the American bottom below the Missouri mouth.
Here for a hundred years around the patriarchal,
mud-walled, grass-roofed cabins had gathered children
and grandchildren, to the fourth and fifth generation.
Around the houses were spacious piazzas, where the
genial, social Frenchmen reproduced the feudal age of
Europe. Gardens were cultivated in the common fields,
cattle fed in the common pastures, and lovers walked
in the long and narrow street. The young men went
away to hunt furs; their frail bark canoes had been to
the distant Platte, and up the Missouri, no one knows
how far,
THE SPANISH DONNA 29
Sixty miles north of Kaskaskia lay Cahokia, and oppo
site Cahokia lay St. Louis.
Now and then a rumour of the struggle of the
American Revolution came to St. Louis, brought by
traders over the Detroit trail from Canada. But the
rebellious colonies seemed very far away.
In the midst of his busy days at Kaskaskia, Colonel
Clark was surprised by an invitation from the Spanish
Governor at St. Louis, to dine with him at the Govern
ment House.
Father Gibault was well acquainted in St. Louis. He
dedicated, in 1770, the first church of God west of the
Mississippi, and often went there to marry and baptise
the villagers. So, with Father Gibault, Colonel Clark
went over to visit the Governor.
" L'Americain Colonel Clark, your Excellency."
The long-haired, bare-headed priest stood chapeau in
hand before the heavy oaken door of the Government
House, at St. Louis. Then was shown the splendid hos
pitality innate to the Spanish race.
The Governor of Upper Louisiana, Don Francisco de
Leyba, was friendly even to excess. He extended his
hand to Colonel Clark.
" I feel myself flattered by this visit of de Sefior le
Colonel, and honoured, honoured. De fame of your
achievement haf come to my ear and awakened in me
emotions of de highest admiration. De best in my house
is at your service; command me to de extent of your
wishes, even to de horses in my stable, de wines in my
basement. My servant shall attend you."
Colonel Clark, a man of plain, blunt speech, was abashed
by this profusion of compliment. His cheeks reddened.
" You do me too much honour," he stammered.
All his life, the truth, the plain truth, and nothing but
the truth, had been Clark's code of conversation. Could
it be possible that the Governor meant all these fine
phrases ? But every succeeding act and word seemed to
indicate his sincerity.
" My wife, Madam Marie, — zis ees de great Ameri-
cain General who haf taken de Illinoa, who haf terri-
30 THE CONQUEST
fied de sauvages, and sent de Briton back to Canada.
And my leetle children, — dees ees de great Command-
ante who ees de friend of your father.
" And, my sister, — dees ees de young Americain who
haf startled de world with hees deeds of valour."
If ever Clark was off his guard, it was when he thus
met unexpectedly the strange and startling beauty of the
Donna de Leyba. Each to the other seemed suddenly
clothed with light, as if they two of all the world were
standing there alone.
What the rest said and did, Clark never knew, although
he replied rationally enough to their questions, — in fact,
he carried on a long conversation with the garrulous Gov
ernor and his amiable dark-haired wife. But the Donna,
the Donna —
Far beyond the appointed hour Clark lingered at her
side. She laughed, she sang. She could not speak a
word of English, Clark could not speak Spanish. Never
theless they fell desperately in love. For the first and
only time in his life, George Rogers Clark looked at a
woman. How they made an appointment to meet again
no one could say; but they did meet, and often.
" The Colonel has a great deal of business in St.
Louis," the soldiers complained.
" Le great Americain Colonel kiss te Governor's sis
ter," whispered the Creoles of St. Louis. How that was
discovered nobody knows, unless it was that Sancho, the
servant, had peeped behind the door.
Clark even began to think he would like to settle in
Louisiana. And the Governor . favoured his project.
" De finest land in de world, Sefior, and we can make
it worth your while. You shall have de whole district
of New Madrid. Commandants, bah ! we are lacking de
material. His Majesty, de King of Spain, will gladly
make you noble."
" And I, for my part," Clark responded, " can testify
to all the subjects of Spain the high regard and sincere
friendship of my countrymen toward them. I hope it will
soon be manifest that we can be of mutual advantage to
one another."
THE SPANISH DONNA 31
Indeed, through De Leyba, Clark even dreamed of a
possible Spanish alliance for America, like that with
France, and De Leyba encouraged it.
Boon companion with the Governor over the wine, and
with the fascinating Donna smiling upon him. Colonel
Clark became not unbalanced as Mark Antony did, — al
though once in a ball-room he kissed the Donna before all
the people.
But there was a terrible strain on Clark's nerves at this
time. His resources were exhausted, they had long been
exhausted, in fact; like Napoleon he had " lived on the
country." And yet no word came from Virginia.
Continental paper was the only money in Clark's mili
tary chest. It took twenty dollars of this to buy a dollar's
worth of coffee at Kaskaskia. Even then the Frenchmen
hesitated. They had never known any money but pias
tres and peltries ; they could not even read the English on
the ragged scrip of the Revolution.
" We do not make money/' said the Creoles, " we use
hard silver." But Francis Vigo, a Spanish trader of St.
Louis, said, "Take the money at its full value. It is good.
I will take it myself."
In matters of credit and finance the word of Vigo was
potential. " Ah, yes, now you can haf supplies," said the
cheerful Creoles, " M'sieur Vigo will take the money, you
can haf de meat an' moccasin."
Colonel Vigo, a St. Louis merchant who had large
dealings for the supply of the Spanish troops, had waited
on Colonel Clark at Cahokia and voluntarily tendered to
him such aid as he could furnish. " I offer you my means
and influence to advance the cause of liberty."
The offer was gratefully accepted. When the biting
winds of winter swept over Kaskaskia, " Here," he said,
" come to my store and supply your necessities." His
advances were in goods and silver piastres, for which
Clark gave scrip or a check on the agent of Virginia at
New Orleans.
Gabriel Cerre in early youth moved to Kaskaskia, where
he became a leading merchant and fur trader. " I am bit
terly opposed to les Americains" he said. Then he met
32 THE CONQUEST
Clark; that magician melted him into friendship, sym
pathy, and aid.
" From the hour of my first interview I have been the
sworn ally of George Rogers Clark ! " exclaimed Charles
Gratiot, a Swiss trader of Cahokia. " My house, my
purse, my credit are at his command."
Clark could not be insensible to this profusion of hos
pitality, which extended, not only to himself, but to his
whole little army and to the cause of his country.
The Frenchmen dug their potatoes, gathered the fruits
of their gnarled apple-trees, and slew the buffalo and bear
around for meat. Winter came on apace, and yet the new
Governor had not arrived.
Colonel Clark's headquarters at the house of Michel
Aubrey, one of the wealthiest fur traders of Kaskaskia,
became a sort of capitol. In front of it his soldiers con
stantly drilled with the newly enlisted Frenchmen. All
men came to Clark about their business ; the piazzas and
gardens were seldom empty. In short, the American
Colonel suddenly found himself the father and adviser
of everybody in the village.
IX
VINCENNES
" T WILL dispossess these Americans," said Governor
I Hamilton at Detroit. " I will recover Vincennes.
JL-I wiH punish Kentucky. I will subdue all Virginia
west of the mountains." And on the seventh of October,
1778,116 left Detroit with eight hundred men, — regulars,
volunteers, and picked Indians.
The French habitants of Vincennes were smoking their
pipes in their rude verandas, when afar they saw the
gleam of red coats. Vincennes sank without a blow and
its people bowed again to the British king.
" I will quarter here for the winter," said Governor
VINCENNES 33
Hamilton. Then he sent an express to the Spanish Gov
ernor at St. Louis with the threat, " If any asylum be
granted the rebels in your territory, the Spanish post will
be attacked."
In their scarlet tunics, emblem of Britain, to Chicka-
saw and Cherokee his runners flew. At Mackinac the
Lake Indians were to " wipe out the rebels of Illinoi'."
Far over to the Sioux went presents and messages, even
to the distant Assiniboine. Thousands of red-handled
scalping knives were placed in their hands. Emissaries
watched Kaskaskia. Picked warriors lingered around the
Ohio to intercept any boats that might venture down with
supplies for the little Virginian army.
New Year's dawned for 1779. Danger hovered over
Clark at Kaskaskia.
" Not for a whole year have I received a scrape of a
pen," he wrote to Patrick Henry. Too small was his
force to stand a siege, too far away to hope for relief.
He called his Kentuckians from Cahokia, and day and
night toiled at the defences of Kaskaskia. How could
they withstand the onslaught of Hamilton and his
artillery ?
But hark ! There is a knocking at the gate, and Francis
Vigo enters. Closeted with Clark he unfolds his errand.
" I am just from Vincennes. Listen ! Hamilton has
sent his Indian hordes in every direction. They are
guarding the Ohio, watching the settlements, stirring up
the most distant tribes to sweep the country. But he has
sent out so many that he is weak. At this moment there
are not more than eighty soldiers left in garrison, nor
more than three pieces of cannon and some swivels
mounted."
With inspiration born of genius and desperate cour
age Clark made his resolve. " If I don't take Hamilton
he '11 take me ; and, by Heaven ! I '11 take Hamilton ! "
But it was midwinter on the bleak prairies of Illinois,
where to this day the unwary traveller may be frozen
stark in the icy chill. Clark's men were almost entirely
without clothing, ammunition, provisions. Can genius
surmount destitution ? Clark turned to Vigo.
3
34 THE CONQUEST
" I have not a blanket, an ounce of bread, nor a pound
of powder. Can you fit me out in the name of Virginia ?"
Francis Vigo, a Sardinian by birth but Republican at
heart, answered, " I can fit you out. Here is an order for
money. Down yonder is a swivel and a boatload of
powder. I will bid the merchants supply whatever you
need. They can look to me for payment."
In two days Clark's men were fitted out and ready.
Clad in skins, they stepped out like trappers.
On the shore lay a new bateau. Vigo's swivel was
rolled aboard, and some of the guns of Kaskaskia.
" Now, Captain John Rogers," said Colonel Clark to
his cousin, " with these forty-eight men and these cannon
you go down the Mississippi, up the Ohio, and enter the
Wabash River. Station yourself a few miles below Vin-
cennes ; suffer nothing to pass, and wait for me."
On the 4th of February the little galley slid out with
Rogers and his men.
" Now who will go with me? " inquired Clark, turning
to his comrades. " It will be a desperate service. I must
call for volunteers."
Stirred by the daring of the deed, one hundred and
thirty young men swore to follow him to the death. All
the remaining inhabitants were detailed to garrison Kas
kaskia and Cahokia. The fickle weather-vanes of old
Kaskaskia veered and whirled, the winds blew hot and
cold, then came fair weather for the starting.
It was February 5, 1779, when George Rogers Clark
set out with his one hundred and thirty men to cross the
Illinois. Vigo pointed out the fur-trader's trail to Vin-
cennes and Detroit. Father Gibault blessed them as they
marched away. The Creole girls put flags in the hands
of their sweethearts, and begged them to stand by " le
Colonel."
" O Mother of God, sweet Virgin, preserve my be
loved," prayed the Donna de Leyba in the Government
House at St. Louis.
Over all the prairies the snows were melting, the rains
were falling, the rivers were flooding.
Hamilton sat at Vincennes planning his murders.
VINCENNES 35
" Next year," he exulted, " there will be the greatest
number of savages on the frontier that has ever been
known. The Six Nations have received war belts from
all their allies."
But Clark and his men were coming in the rain. Eleven
days after leaving Kaskaskia they heard the morning
guns of the fort. Deep and deeper grew the creeks and
sloughs as they neared the drowned lands of the Wabash.
Still they waded on, through water three feet deep ; some
times they were swimming. Between the two Wabashes
the water spread, a solid sheet five miles from shore to
shore. The men looked out, amazed, as on a rolling sea.
But Clark, ever ahead, cheering his men, grasped a hand
ful of gunpowder, and with a whoop, the well-known peal
of border war, blackened his face and dashed into the
water. The men's hearts leaped to meet his daring, and
with " death or victory " humming in their brains, they
plunged in after.
On and on they staggered, buffeting the icy water,
stumbling in the wake of their undaunted leader. Seated
on the shoulders of a tall Shenandoah sergeant, little
Isham Floyd, the fourteen-year-old drummer boy, beat a
charge. Deep and deeper grew the tide; waist deep,
breast high, over their shoulders it played; and above,
the leaden sky looked down upon this unparalleled feat
of human endeavour. Never had the world seen such a
march.
Five days they passed in the water, — days of chill and
whoops and songs heroic to cheer their flagging strength.
The wallets were empty of corn, the men were fainting
with famine, when lo ! an Indian canoe of squaws hove in
sight going to Vincennes. They captured the canoe, and
— most welcome of all things in the world to those fam
ished men — it contained a quarter of buffalo and corn
and kettles ! On a little island they built a fire ; with their
sharp knives prepared the meat, and soon the pots were
boiling. So exhausted were they that Clark would not
let them have a full meal at once, but gave cups of broth
to the weaker ones.
On the sixteenth day Clark cheered his men. " Be-
36 THE CONQUEST
yond us lies Vincennes. Cross that plain and you shall
see it."
On February 22, Washington's birthday, fatigued and
weary they slept in a sugar camp. " Heard the evening
and morning guns of the fort. No provisions yet. Lord
help us ! " is the record of Bowman's journal.
Still without food, the 23d saw them crossing the
Horseshoe Plain, — four miles of water breast high.
Frozen, starved, they struggled through, and on a little
hill captured a Frenchman hunting ducks.
" No one dreams of your coming at this time of year,"
said the duck-hunter. " There are six hundred people in
Vincennes, troops, Indians, and all. This very day Ham
ilton completed the walls of his fort."
Clark pressed his determined lips. " The situation is
all that I can ask. It is death or victory." And there in
the mud, half frozen, chilled to the marrow, starved, Clark
penned on his knee a letter :
" To THE INHABITANTS OF POST VINCENNES :
" GENTLEMEN, — Being now within two miles of your
village with my army, determined to take your fort this
night, and not being willing to surprise you, I take this
method to request such as are true citizens to remain still in
your houses. Those, if any there be, that are friends of the
King, will instantly repair to the fort, join the hair-buyer
general, and fight like men. If any such do not go and are
found afterwards, they may depend on severe punishment.
On the contrary, those who are the friends of liberty may
depend on being well treated, and I once more request them
to keep out of the streets. Every one I find in arms on my
arrival I shall treat as an enemy.
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK."
" Take this. Tell the people my quarrel is with the
British. We shall be in Vincennes by the rising of the
moon. Prepare dinner."
The messenger flew ahead; upon the captured horses
of other duck-hunters Clark mounted his officers. It was
just at nightfall when they entered the lower gate.
" Silence those drunken Indians," roared Hamilton at
VINCENNES 37
the sound of guns. But the Frenchmen themselves
turned their rifles on the fort.
Under the friendly light of the new moon Clark and
his men threw up an intrenchment, and from behind its
shelter in fifteen minutes the skilled volleys of the border
rifle had silenced two of the cannon.
" Surrender!" was Clark's stentorian summons at
daylight.
Hamilton, with the blood of many a borderer on his
head, — what had he to hope? Hot and hotter rained
the bullets.
" Give me three days to consider."
" Not an hour ! " was Clark's reply.
" Let me fight with you? " said The Tobacco's son, the
principal chief on the Wabash.
" No," answered Clark, " you sit back and watch us.
Americans do not hire Indians to fight their battles."
Amazed, the Indians fell back and waited.
The fort fell, and with it British dominion in the north
west territory. Then the galley hove in sight and the
flag waved above Vincennes.
" A convoy up de riviere on its way with goods, from
le Detroit," whispered a Frenchman. Directly Clark dis
patched his boatmen to capture the flotilla.
" Sur la feuille ron — don don don" the voyageurs
were singing.
Merrily rowing down the river came the British,
when suddenly out from a bend swung three boats.
" Surrender!""
Amid the wild huzzas of Vincennes the Americans re
turned, bringing the captive convoy with fifty thousand
dollars' worth of food, clothing, and ammunition, a'nd
forty prisoners.
With a heart full of thanksgiving Clark paid and
clothed his men out of that prize captured on the Wabash.
" Let the British flag float a few days," he said. " I
may entertain some of the hair-buying General's friends."
Very soon painted red men came striding in with bloody
scalps dangling at their belts. But as each one entered,
red-handed from murder, Clark's Long Knives shot him
38 THE CONQUEST
down before the face of the guilty Hamilton. Fifty fell
before he lowered the British flag. But from that day
the red men took a second thought before accepting re
wards for the scalps of white men.
" Now what shall you do with me? " demanded Ham
ilton.
" You? I shall dispatch you as a prisoner of war to
Virginia."
X
THE CITY OF THE STRAIT
CLARK was not an hour too soon. Indians were
already on the march.
" Hamilton is taken!"
Wabasha, the Sioux, from the Falls of St. Anthony,
heard, and stopped at Prairie du Chien.
" Hamilton is taken ! "
Matchekewis, the gray-haired chief of the Chippewas,
coming down from Sheboygan, heard the astounding
word and fell back to St. Joseph's.
The great Hamilton carried away by the rebels ! The
Indians were indeed cowed. The capture of Hamilton
completed Clark's influence. The great Red-Coat sent
away as a prisoner of war was an object-lesson the
Indians could not speedily forget.
Out of Hamilton's captured mail, Clark discovered
that the French in the neighbourhood of Detroit were not
well-affected toward the British, and were ready to revolt
whenever favourable opportunity offered.
"Very well, then, Detroit next!"
But Clark had more prisoners than he knew what to
do with.
" Here," said he, to the captured Detroiters, " I am
anxious to restore you to your families. I know you
are unwilling instruments in this war, but your great
THE CITY OF THE STRAIT 39
King of France has allied himself with the Americans.
Go home, bear the good news, bid your friends welcome
the coming of their allies, the Americans. And tell
Captain Lernoult I am glad to hear that he is constructing
new works at Detroit. It will save us Americans some
expense in building."
The City of the Strait was lit with bonfires.
" We have taken an oath not to fight the Virginians,"
said the paroled Frenchmen.
The people rejoiced when they heard of Hamilton's
capture; they hated his tyranny, and, certain of Clark's
onward progress, prepared a welcome reception for " les
Americains."
" See," said the mistress of a lodging house to Captain
Lernoult. " See what viands I haf prepared for le
Colonel Clark." And the Captain answered not a word.
Baptiste Drouillard handed him a printed proclamation
of the French alliance.
Everywhere Detroiters were drinking, " Success to the
Thirteen United States ! "
" Success to Congress and the American arms ! I
hope the Virginians will soon be at Detroit ! "
" Now Colonel Butler and his scalping crew will meet
their deserts. I know the Colonel for a coward and I '11
turn hangman for him ! "
" Don't buy a farm now. When the Virginians come
you can get one for nothing."
" See how much leather I am tanning for the Virgin
ians. When they come I shall make a great deal of
money."
" Town and country kept three days in feasting and
diversions," wrote Clark to Jefferson, " and we are in
formed that the merchants and others provided many
necessaries for us on our arrival." But this the Colonel
did not learn until long after.
Left alone in command, with only eighty men in the
garrison, Lernoult could do nothing. Bitterly he wrote
to his commander-in-chief, " The Canadians are rebels
to a man. In building the fort they aid only on
compulsion."
4o THE CONQUEST
Even at Montreal the Frenchmen kept saying, " A
French fleet will certainly arrive and retake the country" ;
and Haldimand, Governor General, was constantly refut
ing these rumours.
" Now let me help you," again pleaded The Tobacco's
son to Clark at Vincennes.
" I care not whether you side with me or not," an
swered the American Colonel. " If you keep the peace,
very well. If not you shall suffer for your mischief."
Such a chief! Awed, the Indians retired to their
camps and became spectators. To divert Clark, the
British officers urged these Indians to attack Vincennes.
The Tobacco's son sent back reply, "If you want to
fight the Bostons at St. Vincent's you must cut your
way through them, as we are Big Knives, too ! " Their
fame spread to Superior and the distant Missouri.
" In the vicinity of Chicago the rebels are purchasing
horses to mount their cavalry."
" The Virginians are building boats to take Michili-
mackinac."
" They are sending belts to the Chippewas and Otta-
was."
" The Virginians are at Milwaukee."
So the rumours flew along the Lakes, terrifying every
Briton into strengthening his stronghold. And this, for
the time, kept them well at home.
" Had I but three hundred I could take Detroit," said
Clark. Every day now came the word from the French
of the city, " Come, — come to our relief."
" But Vincennes must be garrisoned. My men are too
few."
Then a messenger arrived with letters from Thomas
Jefferson, now Governor of Virginia, with " thanks from
the Assembly for the heroic service you have rendered,"
and the promise of troops.
Now for the first time were the soldiery made aware of
the gratitude of their country. Tumultuous cheers rent
the air. The Indians heard, and thought it was news of
another victory.
" Let us march this day on Detroit," begged the sol-
A PRISONER OF WAR 41
diers, few as they were. Half the population of Vin-
cennes, and all the Indians, would have followed.
" Too many are ill," Clark said to himself. " Bowman
is dying, the lands are flooded, the rains are falling. An
unsustained march might end in disaster. For five hun
dred troops, I would bind myself a slave for seven years !"
To the soldiers he explained, " Montgomery is coming
with men and powder. Let us rendezvous here in June
and make a dash at Detroit."
Leaving a garrison in the fort, in answer to imperative
call, Clark set out with six boatloads of troops and pris
oners for a flying trip to Kaskaskia.
But every step of the way, day and night, " Detroit
must be taken, Detroit must be taken," was the dream of
the disturbed commander. " I cannot rest. Nothing but
the fall of Detroit will bring peace to our frontiers. In
case I am not disappointed, Detroit is already my own."
XI
A PRISONER OF WAR
A PRISONER of war? No, indeed, he is a
felon, a murderer ! " exclaimed the Virginians,
as weary, wet, and hungry the late Governor of
Detroit sat on his horse in the rain at the door of the
governor's palace at Williamsburg, where Jefferson now
resided. The mob gathered to execrate the " hair-buyer
general " and escort him to jail.
There were twenty-seven prisoners, altogether, brought
by a band of borderers, most of the way on foot.
Every step of the long journey Captain John Rogers
and his men had guarded the " hair-buyer general " from
the imprecations of an outraged people.
It was the first news of Vincennes, as the startled cry
ran, —
" Governor Hamilton, charged with having incited In-
42 THE CONQUEST
dians to scalp, torture, and burn, is at the door, — Hamil
ton, who gave standing rewards for scalps but none for
prisoners; and Dejean, Chief Justice of Detroit, the
merciless keeper of its jails, a terror to captives with
threats of giving them over to savages to be burnt alive ;
Lamothe, a captain of volunteer scalping parties ; Major
Hay, one of Hamilton's chief officers, and others."
" Load them with heavy fetters and immure them in a
dungeon," said Governor Jefferson. " Too many of our
boys are rotting in British prison ships." This from Jef
ferson, so long the humane friend of Burgoyne's surren
dered troops now quartered at Charlottesville !
The British commanders blustered and protested, but
Jefferson firmly replied, " I avow my purpose to repay
cruelty, hangings, and close confinement. It is my duty
to treat Hamilton and his officers with severity. Iron
will be retaliated with iron, prison ships by prison ships,
and like by like in general."
Washington advised a mitigation of the extreme sever
ity, but Jefferson's course had its effect. The British were
more merciful thereafter.
And with the coming of Hamilton came all the wonder
ful story of the capture of Vincennes. And who can tell
it? Who has told it? Historians hesitate. Romancers
shrink from the task. Not one has surpassed George
Rogers Clark's own letters, which read like fragments of
the gospel of liberty.
Before the home fire at Caroline, John Rogers told the
tale. A hush fell. The mother softly wept as she thought
of her scattered boys, one in the west, two with Wash
ington tracking the snows of Valley Forge, one immured
in a prison ship where patriot martyrs groaned their lives
away.
Little William heard the tale, and his young heart
swelled with emotion. John Clark listened, then spoke
but one sentence.
" If I had as many more sons I would give them all to
my country."
All the way from Kentucky Daniel Boone was sent to
the Virginia legislature. He said to Jefferson : " I doubt
TWO WARS AT ONCE 43
these charges against Governor Hamilton. Last Spring
I was captured by the Shawnees and dragged to Detroit.
Governor Hamilton took pity on me and offered the In
dians one hundred dollars for my release. They refused
to take it. But he gave me a horse, and on that horse I
eventually made my escape."
" Did that prevent Governor Hamilton from sending
an armed force of British and Indians to besiege Boons-
boro ? " inquired Jefferson.
Boone had to admit that it did not. But for that timely
escape and warning Boonsboro would have fallen.
But Boone in gratitude went to the dungeon and
offered what consolation he could to the imprisoned
Governor.
The fact is, that Daniel Boone carried ever on his
breast, wrapped in a piece of buckskin, that old commis
sion of Lord Dunmore's. It saved him from the Indians ;
it won Hamilton.
XII
TWO WARS AT ONCE
THE sunbeams glistened on the naked skin of an
Indian runner, as, hair flying in the wind, from
miles away he came panting to Clark at Kaskaskia.
" There is to be an attack on San Loui'. Wabasha, the
Sioux, and Matchekewis — "
" How do you know ? "
" I hear at Michilimackinac, — Winnebagoe, Sauk,
Fox, Menomonie."
Clark laughed and gave the messenger a drink of taffia.
But the moment the painted savage slid away the Colonel
prepared to inform his friends at St. Louis.
" Pouf ! " laughed the careless, commandant, drinking
his wine at the Government House. " Why need we
fear? Are not our relation wit de Indian friendly?
44 THE CONQUEST
Never haf been attack on San Luis, never will be. Be
seat, haf wine, tak' wine, Sefior le Colonel."
"Pouf!" echoed the guests at the Governor's table.
" Some trader angry because he lose de peltry stole in de
Spanish country. It never go beyond threat."
An attack? The very idea seemed to amuse the Gov
ernor in his cups. But Father Gibault looked grave. " I,
too, have heard such a rumour."
" It may be only a belated report of Hamilton's schem
ing," replied Clark. " Now he is boxed up it may blow
over. But in case the English attempt to seize the west
bank of this river I pledge you all the assistance in my
power."
" T'anks, t'anks, my good friend, I '11 not forget. In
de middle of de night you get my summon."
But, unknown to them, that very May, Spain declared
war against Great Britain. And Great Britain coveted
the Mississippi.
Madame Marie and the charming Donna had been lis
teners. Colonel Clark handed the maiden a bouquet of
wild roses as he came in, but spoke not a word. All the
year had she been busy, embroidering finery for " le
Colonel." Such trifles were too dainty for the soldier's
life — but he wore them next his heart.
While the dinner party overwhelmed the victor with
congratulations and drank to his health, Clark saw only
the Donna, child of the convent, an exotic, strangely out
of place in this wild frontier.
" I am a soldier," he whispered, " and cannot tarry.
My men are at the boats, but I shall watch St. Louis."
Her eyes followed him, going away so soon, with
Father Gibault and De Leyba down to the river. As he
looked back a handkerchief fluttered from an upper win
dow, and he threw her a kiss.
" I am not clear but the Spaniards would suffer
their settlements to fall with ours for the sake of hav
ing the opportunity of retaking them both," muttered
Clark as he crossed the river, suspicious of De Leyba' s
inaction.
At Kaskaskia forty recruits under Captain Robert
TWO WARS AT ONCE 45
George had arrived by way of New Orleans. Then
Montgomery, with another forty, came down the Ohio.
They must be fed and clothed directly. In the midst
of these perplexities appeared John Todd, the new
Governor.
" Ah, my friend," Clark grasped his hand. " Now I
see myself happily rid of a piece of trouble I take no de
light in. I turn the civil government over to you. But
our greatest trouble is the lack of money."
"Money? Why, here are continental bills in abun
dance."
" Worth two cents on the dollar. ' Dose British
traders/ say the habitants, ' dey will not take five huntert
to one. Dey will have nought but skins.' This has
brought our Virginia paper into disrepute. They will
not even take a coin unless it is stamped with the head
of a king."
" What have you done? "
" Done? Purchased supplies on my own credit. Sev
eral merchants of this country have advanced consider
able sums and I have given them drafts on our Virginian
agent in New Orleans. They come back, protested for
want of funds. Francis Vigo has already loaned me ten
thousand dollars in silver piastres."
" But Virginia will pay it, — she is bound to pay it.
The service must not suffer." Thus reassured that his
course had been right, Colonel Clark continued :
" Four posts must be garrisoned to hold this country,
— Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Vincennes, and the Falls of the
Ohio, — not one has sufficient defence. Colonel Mont
gomery's force is not half what I expected. But if I am
not deceived in the Kentuckians I shall yet be able to com
plete my designs on Detroit. I only want sufficient men
to make me appear respectable in passing among the
savages."
The cautious French settlers were a trial to Clark.
Father Gibault tried to persuade them, parting with his
own tithes and horses to set an example to his parish
ioners to make equal sacrifices to the American cause.
Altogether, Father Gibault advanced seven thousand
46 THE CONQUEST
eight hundred livres, French money, equal to fifteen
hundred and sixty dollars, — his little all.
Governor Todd said, " If the people will not spare
willingly, you must press it."
" I cannot press it," answered Clark. " We must keep
the inhabitants attached to us by every means in our
power. Rather will I sign notes right and left on my
own responsibility to procure absolute necessities to hold
Illinois, trusting to Virginia to make it right."
Then after a thoughtful pause, — "I cannot think of
the consequences of losing possession of the country with
out resolving to risk every point rather than suffer it."
The bad crops of 17/9 and the severity of the winter of
1780 made distress in Illinois. Nevertheless the cheerful
habitants sold their harvests to Clark and received in
payment his paper on New Orleans.
" You encourage me to attempt Detroit," Clark wrote
to Jefferson. " It has been twice in my power. When I
first arrived in this country, or when I was at Vincennes,
could I have secured my prisoners and had only three
hundred men, I should have attempted it, and I since
learn there could have been no doubt of my success. But
they are now completing a new fort, too strong I fear for
any force that I shall ever be able to raise in this country."
Then he hurried back to Vincennes. Thirty only were
there of the three hundred expected. An Indian army
camped ready to march at his call.
" Never depend upon Injuns," remarked Simon Ken-
ton, reappearing after an absence of weeks. •
" Kenton ? Well, where have you been ? You look
battered."
" Battered I am, but better, the scars are almost gone.
Captured by Shawnees, made to run the gauntlet twice,
then dragged to St. Dusky to be burnt at the stake."
" How did you escape ? "
" One of your Detroit Frenchmen, Pierre Drouillard,
late interpreter for your captured Hamilton, told them the
officers at Detroit wanted to question me about the Big
Knife. Ha ! Ha ! It took a long powwow and plenty of
wampum, and the promise to bring me back,"
THE KEY OF THE COUNTRY 47
"Did he intend to do it?"
" Lord, no ! as soon as we were out of sight he told me,
1 Never will I abandon you to those inhuman wretches.'
A trader's wife enabled me to escape from Detroit."
" Do you think I can take Detroit? "
" Take it, man ? As easy as you took Vincennes. Only
the day of surprise is past. A cloud of red Injuns watch
the approaches. You must have troops."
Troops ! Troops ! None came. None could come.
What had happened?
Taking with him one of Hamilton's light brass cannon
to fortify the Falls of the Ohio, Clark discovered that at
the very time of his capture, Hamilton had appointed a
great council of Indians to meet at the mouth of the
Tennessee.
" The Cherokees have risen on the Tennessee settle
ments, and the regiments intended for you have turned
south."
The sword and belt of Hamilton had done their work.
America was fighting two wars at once.
XIII
THE KEY OF THE COUNTRY
" rTIHE Falls is the Key of the Country. It shall be
my depot of supplies. Here will I build a fort.
A A great city will one day arise on this spot."
And in honour of the King who had helped America,
Clark named it Louisville.
Axes, hammers, and saws made music while Clark's
busy brain was planning parks and squares to make his
city the handsomest in America. But, ever disturbing
this recreation, " Detroit " was in his soul. " Public in
terest requires that I reside here until provision can be
made for the coming campaign."
" Since Clark's feat the world is running mad for
48 THE CONQUEST
Kentucky," said the neighbours in Caroline. Through
all that Autumn, emigrants were hurrying down to take
advantage of the new land laws of Virginia.
"A fleet of flatboats!" shouted the workmen at the
Falls. Down with others from Pittsburg, when the
autumn rains raised the river, came Clark's old com
rade, John Floyd, and his brothers and his bride, Jane
Buchanan. One of those brothers was Isham Floyd, the
boy drummer of Vincennes.
" I, too, shall build a fort," said John Floyd to his
friends, " here on Bear Grass Creek, close to Louisville."
Still emigrants were on their way, when a most terrific
winter set in. Stock was frozen, wild beasts and game
died. The forests lay deep with snow, and rivers were
solid with ice.
The cabins of Louisville were crowded, the fort was
filled with emigrants. Food gave out, corn went up to
one hundred and fifty dollars a bushel in depreciated con
tinental currency. Even a cap of native fur cost five
hundred dollars.
The patient people shivered under their buffalo, bear,
and elk-skin bedquilts, penned in the little huts, living on
boiled buffalo beef and venison hams, with fried bear or
a slice of turkey breast for bread, and dancing on Christ
mas night with pineknot torches bracketed on the walls.
" Did you not say the conquerors of Vincennes waded
through the drowned lands in February?" asked a fair
one of her partner at the dance.
" Yes, but that was an open winter. This, thank God,
is cold enough to deter our enemies from attempting to
recover what they have lost."
" But Colonel Clark said the weather was warm ? "
" Warm, did you say? Who knows what Clark would
have called warm weather in February? The water up
to their armpits could not have been warm at that time
of year."
The spring waters broke; a thousand emigrants went
down the Ohio to Louisville. And carcasses of bear, elk,
deer, and lesser game floated out of the frozen forests.
During the June rise more than three hundred flatboats
THE KEY OF THE COUNTRY 49
arrived at the Falls loaded with wagons ; for months long
trains were departing from Louisville with these people
bound for the interior. Floyd's fort on the Bear Grass
became a rendezvous; the little harbour an anchorage for
watercraft.
" We must establish a claim to the Mississippi/' wrote
Jefferson to Clark. " Go down to the mouth of the Ohio
and build a fort on Chickasaw Bluff. It will give us a
claim to the river."
While Clark was preparing, an express arrived from
Kaskaskia, —
" We are threatened with invasion. Fly to our relief."
Without money save land warrants, without clothing
save skins, depending on their rifles for food, Clark's
little flotilla with two hundred men set down the Ohio,
on the very flood that was bringing the emigrants, to
clinch the hold on Illinois.
" I have now two thousand warriors on the Lakes.
The Wabash Indians have promised to amuse Mr. Clark
at the Falls." De Peyster, the new commandant at De
troit, was writing to General Haldimand at Quebec.
Even as Clark left, a few daring savages came up and
fired on the fort at Louisville.
" She is strong enough now to defend herself," said
Clark as he pulled away.
Colonel Bird, working hard at Detroit, started his
Pottawattamies. They went but a little way.
"Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Long Knives coming !" Pell-
mell, back they fell, to be fitted out all over again.
" These unsteady rogues put me out of all patience! "
exclaimed the angry Colonel Bird. " They are always
cooking or counciling. Indians are most happy when
most frequently fitted out."
" Such is the dependence on Indians without troops to
lead them," sagely remarked De Peyster. " But without
them we could not hold the country."
" It is distressing/' wrote Governor Haldimand, " to
reflect that notwithstanding the vast treasure lavished
upon these people, no dependence can be had on them."
" Amazing sum ! " he exclaimed when the bills came
4
50 THE CONQUEST
in. " I observe with great concern the astonishing con
sumption of rum at Detroit. This expense cannot be
borne."
However, the Pottawattamies sharpened their hatchets
and, newly outfitted, set out for the rapids of the Ohio.
" Bring them in alive if possible," was the parting ad
monition of De Peyster, warned by the obloquy of Hamil
ton. Vain remonstrance with four hundred and seventy-
six dozen scalping knives at Bird's command !
From every unwary emigrant along the Ohio, daily the
Delawares and Shawnees brought their offerings of scalps
to Detroit, and throwing them down at the feet of the
commander said, " Father, we have done as you directed
us ; we have struck your enemies."
The bounty was paid; the scalps were counted and
flung into a cellar under the Council House.
And De Peyster, really a good fellow, like Andre, a
bon vivant and lover of books and music, went on with
his cards, balls, and assemblies, little feeling the iron that
goes to the making of nations.
" Kentuckians very bad people ! Ought to be scalped
as fast as taken," said the Indians.
XIV
BEHIND THE CURTAIN
" "If 1C T"^ must dislodge this American general from
V/^y his new conquest," said the British officers,
* V "or tribe after tribe will be gained over and
subdued. Thus will be destroyed the only barrier which
protects the great trading establishments of the North
west and Hudson's Bay. Nothing could then prevent
the Americans from gaining the source of the Mississippi,
gradually extending themselves by the Red River to Lake
Winnipeg, from whence the descent of Nelson's River to
York Fort would in time be easy."
BEHIND THE CURTAIN 51
Another strong factor in this decision was the dissatis
faction of the British traders with the new movement that
was deflecting the fur trade down the Mississippi. The
French families of Cahokia and Kaskaskia sent their furs
down to New Orleans, greatly to the displeasure of their
late English rulers, who wanted them to go to Canada,
by the St. Louis trail to Detroit.
" Why should it not continue over the old Detroit trail
to Montreal?" they questioned. " Is our fur trade to
be cut off by these beggarly rebels and Spaniards ? It be
longs to Canada, Canada shall have it! " So all North
America was fought over for the fur trade.
" I will use my utmost endeavours to send as many In
dians as I can to attack the Spanish settlements, early in
February," said Pat Sinclair, the British commander at
Michilimackinac.
" I have taken steps to engage the Sioux under their
own Chief, Wabasha, a man of uncommon abilities.
Wabasha is allowed to be a very extraordinary Indian
and well attached to His Majesty's interest."
And Wabasha, king of the buffalo plains above the
Falls of St. Anthony, was an extraordinary Indian. In
old days he fought for Pontiac, but after De Peyster
brought the Sioux, the proudest of the tribes, to espouse
the English cause, every year Wabasha made a visit to
his British father at Michilimackinac.
On such a visit as this he came from Prairie du Chien
after hearing that Hamilton was taken, and was received
with songs and cannonading:
" Hail to great Wabashaw !
Cannonier — fire away,
Hoist the fort-standard, and beat all the drums ;
Ottawa and Chippewa,
Whoop ! for great Wabashaw !
He comes — beat drums — the Sioux chief comes.
" Hail to great Wabashaw !
Soldiers your triggers draw,
Guard, — wave the colours, and give him the drum !
Choctaw and Chickasaw,
Whoop for great Wabashaw !
Raise the port-cullis ! — the King's friend is come."
52 THE CONQUEST
By such demonstrations and enormous gifts, the In
dians were held to the British standard.
It was Wabasha and his brothers, Red Wing and Little
Crow, who in 1767 gave a deed to Jonathan Carver of all
the land around St. Anthony's Falls, on which now stand
the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, but no government
confirmation of the deed has ever been discovered.
" The reduction of St. Louis will be an easy matter,
and of the rebels at Kaskaskia also," continued Sinclair.
" All the traders who will secure the posts on the Spanish
side of the Mississippi have my promise for the exclu
sive trade of the Missouri."
The Northwest red men were gathering, — Menomo-
nies, Sacs, Foxes, Winnebagoes, — at the portage of the
Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, collecting all the corn and
canoes in the country, to set out on the tenth of March.
Again Sinclair writes, " Seven hundred and fifty men
set out down the Mississippi the second of May."
Another party assembled at Chicago to come by the
Illinois, — Indians, British, and traders.
" Captain Hesse will remain at St. Louis," continued
Governor Sinclair. "Wabasha will attack Ste. Genevieve
and the rebels at Kaskaskia. Two vessels leave here on
the second of June to attend Matchekewis, who will re
turn by the Illinois River with prisoners."
Very well De Peyster knew Matchekewis, the puis
sant chief who
" At foot-ball sport
With arms concealed, surprised the fort,"
at Michilimackinac in Pontiac's war. It was Matcheke
wis himself who kicked the ball over the pickets, and
rushing in with his band fell on the unprepared ranks of
the British garrison. On the reoccupation of Mackinac,
Matchekewis had been sent to Quebec and imprisoned,
but, released and dismissed with honours and a buffalo
barbecue, now he was leading his Chippewas for the
King.
All this was part of a wider scheme, devised in London,
for the subjugation of the Mississippi.
THE ATTACK ON ST. LOUIS 53
XV
THE ATTACK ON ST. LOUIS
SCARCE had Clark time to set his men to work on
Fort Jefferson, on the Chickasaw Bluffs overlooking
the Mississippi, before he received two other ex
presses, one from Montgomery, one from the Spanish
Governor himself, — " Haste, haste to our relief."
Not wishing to alarm his men, Clark picked out a
strong escort, — "I shall be gone a few days. Finish
the fort. Keep a constant guard."
They thought he had gone to Kentucky.
All through the year 1779 the Frenchmen remembered
Clark's warning. At last, so great became the general
apprehension, that the people themselves, directed by
Madame Rigauche, the school-mistress, erected a sort of
defence of logs and earth, five or six feet high, and posted
a cannon in each of the three gates.
" Pouf ! Pouf ! " laughed the Governor. But he did
not interfere.
But so many days elapsed, so little sign of change ap
peared in the accustomed order of things, that the reas
sured Frenchmen went on as usual digging in their fields,
racing their horses, and clicking their billiard balls.
Night after night they played their fiddles and danced
till dawn on their footworn puncheon floors.
And all the while the Lake Indians of the North were
planning and counselling. All through the Spring they
were gathering at rendezvous, paddling down Lake Mich
igan's shore into the Chicago River, and then by portage
into the Illinois, where they set up the cry, " On to St.
Louis ! "
So long had been the fear allayed, so much the rumour
discredited, that when old man Quenelle came back across
the river, white with excitement, the people listened to
his tale as of one deranged.
54 THE CONQUEST
"What? Do you ask? What?" His teeth chat
tered. " Ducharme, Ducharme the absconder, meet me
across te river an' say — ' Te Injun comin' ! ' Fifteen
huntert down te river of te Illinois ! "
Terrified was the old man. Hearers gathered round
plying him with questions. The incredulous laughed at
his incoherence. ''What? What?" he gasped. "You
laugh ? " Some believed him. Dismay began to creep
over the more timid ones.
" What is it? " inquired the burly Governor De Leyba,
bustling up. "What? That same old yarn to frighten
the people? Quenelle is an old dotard. Take him to
prison." Thus reassured, again the people went on with
work, games, festivity.
But now the people of Cahokia became excited. Early
in March Colonel Gratiot sent a boatload of goods for
trade to Prairie du Chien. It was captured by Indians
on the Mississippi. Breathless half-breed runners re
ported the apparition upon the waters, — " All te waves
black with canoes. A great many sauvages."
" Clark," was the spoken and unspoken thought of all.
" Clark, the invincible, where is he ? "
Some said, " He is camped with his Long Knives in
the American Bottom."
" No, he is building a fort at the Chickasaw Bluffs."
Hurriedly the villagers prepared an express for Clark.
Charles Gratiot was sent, the brainiest man in Cahokia,
one who could speak English, and, moreover, a great
friend of Clark.
On the swiftest canoe Charles Gratiot launched amid
the prayers of Cahokia. Down he swept on the Missis
sippi with the precious papers calling for succour. Safely
he passed a thousand snags, safely reached the bluffs of
Chickasaw, and saw the fort. Toiling up he gave his
message.
"Colonel Clark? He is gone. We think he left for
Louisville." Without delay a messenger was dispatched
to follow his supposed direction.
Meanwhile, Clark and his soldiers, joining Montgomery
by land, had hurried to Cahokia. Immediately he crossed
THE ATTACK ON ST. LOUIS 55
to St. Louis. It was the feast of Corpus Christi, May 25.
Service in the little log chapel was over.
" Come," said the people in holiday attire, " Let us
gather strawberries on the flowery mead."
From their covert, peeped the Indians. " To-mor
row ! " they said, " to-morrow ! "
Out of the picnic throng, with lap full of flowers, the
beautiful Donna ran to greet her lover.
" So long " — she drew a sigh — "I haf watched and
waited ! " Love had taught her English. Never had the
Donna appeared so fair, with shining eyes and black
hair waving on her snowy shoulders.
With tumultuous heart Colonel Clark bent and kissed
her. " Vengeance I swear on any Indian that shall ever
mar this lovely head ! " Then crushing her hand with the
grip of a giant, — " Wait a little, my dear, I must see
your brother the Governor."
Outside the maiden waited while Clark entered the
Government House.
At last Don Francisco De Leyba was come to his
senses : " I fear, but I conceal from de people. I sent
for Lieutenant Cartabona from de Ste. Genevieve. He
haf arrived with twenty-five soldier. Will you not com
mand of both side de river ? I need you. You promised."
De Leyba wore a long scarf of crape for his lately
deceased wife. Clark had never seen him look so ill;
he was worn out and trembling. The ruffle at his wrist
shook like that of a man with palsy.
Clark took the nervous hand in his own firm grasp.
" Certainly, my friend, I will do everything in my
power. What are your defences? "
" We haf a stockade, you note it ? De cannon at gates ?
I assure de people no danger, de rumour false ; I fear dey
scarce will believe now." Together they went out to re
view Cartabona's soldiers and the works of defence.
" Le Colonel Clark ! Le Colonel Clark ! " the people
cheered as he passed. " Now we are safe! "
De Leyba had sent out a hunter to shoot ducks for the
Colonel's dinner. And while the Governor and Clark
were in discussion, the hunter met a spy.
56 THE CONQUEST
" Who commands at Cahokia? " inquired the stranger.
" Colonel Clark ; he has arrived with a great force."
" Colonel Clark! Oh, no," answered the spy in amaze
ment, " that cannot be ! Clark is in Kentucky. We have
just killed an express with dispatches to him there."
" I don't know about that," answered the hunter, in
his turn surprised. " Colonel Clark is at this moment in
St. Louis, and I have been sent to kill some ducks for his
dinner."
The stranger disappeared.
Clark was in St. Louis about, two hours. " Cartabona
is here. I shall be ready to answer his slightest signal.
Be sure I shall answer." He turned to go.
" Going? No, no, Senor Colonel, I cannot permit — "
The hands of Governor De Leyba shook still more. " I
expect you to dine, — haf sent a hunter for ducks."
But when did George Rogers Clark ever stop to eat
when there was fighting on hand ? Hastily recrossing the
river, he put Cahokia into immediate defence.
The next day dawned clear and bright, but the people,
wearied with all-night dancing, slumbered late. Grand
father Jean Marie Cardinal had not danced. He was un
commonly industrious that morning. Hastening away in
the dewy dawn, he went to planting corn in his slightly
plowed fields. Gradually others strolled out on the Grand
Prairie. It was high noon when an Indian down by
the spring caught the eye of Grandfather Jean Marie
Cardinal.
" He must not give the alarm," thought the savage, so
on the instant he slew and scalped him where he stood.
Then all was tumult. The people in the village heard
the sound of firearms. Lieutenant Cartabona and his
garrison fired a gunshot from the tower to warn the
scattered villagers in the fields. Erelong they came stum
bling into the north gate half dead with fright and
exhaustion.
" The Chippewas ! The Chippewas ! "
They had crossed the river and murdered the family of
Frangois Bellhome.
" Sacre Dieu! le Sauvage! la Tour! la Tour! " cried the
THE ATTACK ON ST. LOUIS 57
frantic habitants, but the tower was occupied by Carta-
bona and his coward soldiers.
Every man rushed to the Place des Armes, powder-
horn and bullet-pouch in hand.
" To arms ! To arms ! " was the terrified cry.
" Where is the garrison? Where is the Governor? "
But they came not forth. Cartabona and his men con
tinued to garrison the tower. The Governor cowered
in the Government House with doors shut and barri
caded. Women and children hid in the houses, telling
their beads.
It was about noon when the quick ear of Clark, over
in Cahokia, heard the cannonading and small arms in St.
Louis. He sent an express.
" Here, Murray and Jaynes, go over the river and in
quire the cause."
Slipping through the cottonwood trees, the express met
an old negro woman on a keen run for Cahokia. She
screamed, "Run, Boston, run! A great many salvages!"
All together ran back, just in time to meet Colonel
Clark marching out of the east gate. In the thick woods
of Cahokia Creek he caught a view of the foe. " Boom ! "
rang his brass six-pounder, — tree-tops and Indians fell
together.
Amazed at this rear fire the Indians turned in confu
sion. One terrified look, — " It is the Long Knife ! We
have been deceived. We will not fight the Long Knife! "
With one wild whoop they scurried to their boats. The
handful of traders, deserted, raised the siege and retired.
It was the period of the spring rise of the powerful
and turbulent Mississippi, which, undermining its shores,
dumped cottonwood trees into the river.
" The whole British army is coming on rafts ! " In
terror seeing the supposed foe advancing, Cartabona's
soldiers began firing at the white-glancing trees on the
midnight waters. On, on came the ghostly flotilla.
" Cease firing! " demanded De Leyba emerging from
his retreat.
" De cowardly, skulking old Goffner ! hide heself !
abandon de people ! " In wrath they tore toward him,
58 THE CONQUEST
sticks and stones flying. The Governor fled, and the daft
Spaniards, watching the river, spiked the cannon, pre
paring to fly the moment the British landed.
Cahokia trembled all night long. There were noises
and howls of wolves, but no Indians. Clark him
self in the darkness made the rounds of his sentinels.
Even through the shadows they guessed who walked at
night.
" Pass, grand round, keep clear of my arms and all 's
well," was the successive cry from post to post in the
picket gardens of old Cahokia.
With the first pale streak of dawn the sleepless habi
tants looked out. All was still. The Indians were gone,
but over at St. Louis seven men were found dead, scalped
by the retreating foe. Many more were being carried off
prisoners, but Clark's pursuing party rescued thirty.
The prisoners, dragged away to the north by their cap
tors, suffered hardships until restored at the end of the
war, in 1783.
When Clark heard of the incompetence of De Leyba
he was furious. On his way to the Government House,
he saw the lovely Donna at her casement. Her hair was
dishevelled, her eyes wet with tears. She extended her
hand. Clark took one step toward her, and then pride
triumphed.
" Never will I become the father of a race of cowards,"
and turning on his heel he left St. Louis forever.
In one month De Leyba was dead, some said by his
own hand. He knew that Auguste Chouteau had gone to
complain of him at New Orleans, — the people believed he
had been bribed by Great Britain ; he knew that only dis
grace awaited him, and he succumbed to his many disas
ters and the universal obloquy in which he was held. He
was buried in the little log chapel, beneath the altar, by
the side of his wife, where his tomb is pointed out to this
day.
And the beautiful Donna De Leyba? She waited and
wept but Clark came not. Then, taking with her the two
little orphan nieces, Rita and Perdita, she went down
to New Orleans. Here for a time she lingered among
THE ATTACK ON ST. LOUIS 59
friends, and at last, giving up all hope, retired to the
Ursuline convent and became a nun.
Presently Auguste Chouteau returned from New Or
leans with the new Governor, Don Francisco de Cruzat,
who pacified fears and fortified the town with half-a-
dozen circular stone turrets, twenty feet high, connected
by a stout stockade of cedar posts pierced with loopholes
for artillery. On the river bank a stone tower called the
Half Moon, and west of it a square log tower called
the Bastion, still stood within the memory of living
men.
" Next year a thousand Sioux will be in the field under
Wabasha," wrote Sinclair to Haldimand, his chief in
Canada.
But the Sioux had no more desire to go back to " the
high walled house of thunder," where the cannon sounded
not " Hail to great Wabashaw! "
Their own losses were considerable, for Clark ordered
an immediate pursuit. Some of the Spaniards, grateful
for the succour of the Americans, crossed the river and
joined Montgomery's troops in his chase after the re
treating red men.
" The Americans are coming," was the scare-word at
Prairie du Chien. " Better get up your furs."
With Wabasha's help the traders hastily bundled three
hundred packs of their best furs into canoes, and set
ting fire to the remaining sixty packs, burned them,
together with the fort, while they hurried away to
Michilimackinac. Matchekewis went by the Lakes.
" Two hundred Illinois cavalry arrived at Chicago five
days after the vessels left," is the record of the Haldi
mand papers.
The watchfulness and energy of Clark alone saved
Illinois; nevertheless, De Peyster felt satisfied, for he
thought that diversion kept Clark from Detroit.
After the terror was all over, long in the annals of the
fireside, the French of St. Louis related the feats of
" I'annee du coup."
" Auguste Chouteau, he led te defence, he and he
brother."
60 THE CONQUEST
" No, Madame Rigauche, te school-meestress, she her
self touch te cannon."
" Well, at any rate, we hid in te Chouteau garden, be
hind te stone wall."
XVI
OLD CHILLICOTHE
WITH a wrench at his hot heart stifled only by
wrath and determination, Clark strode from St.
Louis. At Cahokia French deserters were talk
ing to Montgomery.
" A tousand British and Indians on te march to Ken
tucky with cannon."
"When did they start?" thundered Clark. The
Frenchman dodged as if shot.
" Dey start same time dis. Colonel Bird to keep Clark
busy in Kentucky so Sinclair get San Loui' an' brak up
te fur trade."
For once in his life Clark showed alarm. " I know the
situation of that country. I shall attempt to get there
before Bird does."
Drawing Montgomery aside, he said, " And you,
Colonel, chase these retreating Indians. Chase them to
Michilimackinac if possible. Destroy their towns and
crops, distress them, convince them that we will retali
ate and thus deter them from joining the British again."
Without pausing to breathe after the fatigue of the
last few days, with a small escort Clark launched a boat
and went flying down to Chickasaw Bluffs. Disguised
as Indians, feathered and painted, he and a few others
left Fort Jefferson.
Clark's army the year before had carried glowing news
of Illinois. Already emigration had set in. On the way
now he met forty families actually starving because they
could not kill buffaloes.
OLD CHILLICOTHE 61
A gun ? — it was a part of Clark. He used his rifle-
barrelled firelock as lie used his hands, his feet, his eyes,
instantly, surely, involuntarily. He showed them how to
strike the buffalo in a vital part, killed fourteen, and hur
ried on, thirty miles a day, fording stream and swamp
and tangled forest to save Kentucky.
Kentucky was watching for her deliverer. Into his ear
was poured the startling tale. With Simon Girty, the
renegade, and six hundred Indians, down the high waters
of the Miami and up the Licking, Bird came to Ruddle's
station and fired his cannon. Down went the wooden
palisades like a toy blockhouse before his six-pounders.
" Surrender! " came the summons from Colonel Bird.
' Yes, if we can be prisoners to the British and not to
the Indians."
Bird assented. The gates were thrown open. Indians
flew like dogs upon the helpless people.
' You promised security," cried Captain Ruddle.
" I cannot stop them," said Bird. " I, too, am in their
power."
Madly the Indians sacked the station and killed the
cattle. Loading the household goods upon the backs of
the unfortunate owners, they drove them forth and gave
their cabins to the flames.
The same scenes were enacted at Martin's Station.
The Indians were wild for more. But Bird would not
permit further devastation. He could easily have taken
every fort in Kentucky, not one could have withstood
his artillery ; but to his honour be it said, he led his forces
out.
Loaded with plunder, the wretched captives, four hun
dred and fifty men, women, and children, were driven
away to Detroit. Whoever faltered was tomahawked.
Clark immediately called on the militia of Kentucky.
Hastening to Harrodsburg he found the newcomers wild
over land entries.
" Land ! " they cried, " you can have all you can hold
against the Indians."
It was a grewsome joke. The Indians would not even
let them survey. Like a military dictator, Clark closed
62 THE CONQUEST
the land office, — " Nor will it be opened again until
after this expedition."
Immediately a thousand men enlisted. Logan, Linn,
Floyd, Harrod, all followed the banner of Clark. Boone
and Kenton set on ahead as guides, into the land they
knew so well.
" Is it not dangerous to invade the Shawnee country? "
inquired one.
" I was not born in the woods to be scared by an owl,"
was Clark's sententious reply.
All the provisions they had for twenty-five days was
six quarts of parched corn each, except what they got in
the Indian country.
Canoeing down the Licking, on the first day of August
they crossed the Ohio. Scarce touching shore they heard
the scalp halloo. Some fell. Within fifteen minutes
Clark had his axes, in the forest building a blockhouse
for his wounded. On that spot now stands Cincinnati.
On pressed Clark in his retaliatory dash, — before the
Shawnees even suspected, the Kentuckians were at Old
Chillicothe. They flew to arms, but the Long Knives
swooped down with such fury that Simon Girty drew
off.
" It is folly to fight such madmen."
Chillicothe went down in flames; Piqua followed;
fields, gardens, more than five hundred acres of corn
were razed to the level of the sod.
Piqua was Tecumseh's village; again he learned to
dread and hate the white man.
" That will keep them at home hunting for a while,"
remarked Clark, turning back to the future Cincinnati.
"DETROIT MUST BE TAKEN" 63
XVII
"DETROIT MUST BE TAKEN"
AGAIN George Rogers Clark sped, through Cum
berland Gap, fair as a Tyrolean vale, to Virginia.
And dashing along the same highway, down the
valley of Virginia, came the minute men of the border,
in green hunting shirts, hard-riders and sharp-shooters
of Fincastle.
" Hey and away, and what news ? "
The restless mountaineers of the Appalachians, almost
as fierce and warlike as the Goths and Vandals of an
earlier day, answered :
" We have broken the back of Tarleton's army at
King's Mountain, Cornwallis is facing this way, and
cruisers are coming up into the Chesapeake."
" Marse Gawge ! Marse Gawge ! "
This time it was little York, the negro, who, peeping
from the slave quarters of old York and Rose, detected
the stride of George Rogers Clark out under the mulberry
trees.
The long, low, Virginia farmhouse was wrapped in
slumber, an almost funeral pall hung over the darkened
porch, as John Clark stepped out to grasp the hand of
his son.
" Three of my boys in British prisons, we looked for
nothing less for you, George. William alone is left."
" Girls do not count, I suppose," laughed the saucy
Lucy, peeping out in her night-curls with a candle in her
hand. " Over at Bowling Green the other day, when all
the gallants were smiling on me, one jealous girl said, ' I
do not see what there is so interesting about Lucy Clark.
She is not handsome, and she has red hair/ ' Ah/ I re
plied, ' I can tell her. They know I have five brothers all
officers in the Revolutionary army ! '
" What, Edmund gone, too?" exclaimed George. "He
is but a lad ! "
64 THE CONQUEST
" Big enough to don the buff and blue, and shoulder a
gun," answered the father. "He would go, — left school,
led all his mates, and six weeks later was taken prisoner
along with Jonathan and the whole army."
That was the fall of Charleston, in the very May
when Clark was saving St. Louis.
" We are all at war," spoke up Elizabeth, the elder
sister, sadly. " Even the boys drill on mimic battle
fields ; all the girls in Virginia are spinning and weaving
clothes for the soldiers; Mrs. Washington keeps sixteen
spinning-wheels busy at Mount Vernon ; mother and all
the ladies have given their jewels to fit out the army.
Mrs. Jefferson herself led the call for contributions, and
Mrs. Lewis of Albemarle collected five thousand dollars
in Continental currency. Father has given up his best
horses, and Jefferson impressed his own horses and
waggons at Monticello to carry supplies to General Gates.
All the lads in the country are moulding bullets and mak
ing gun-powder. We have n't a pewter spoon left."
" An' we niggers air raisin' fodder," ventured the ten-
year-old York.
York had his part, along with his young master, Wil
liam. Daily they rode together down the Rappahannock,
carrying letters to Fielding Lewis at Fredericksburg. It
was there, at Kenmore House, that they met Meriwether
Lewis, visiting his uncle and aunt Betty, the sister of
Washington. " And when she puts on his chapeau and
great coat, she looks exactly like the General," said
William.
"What has become of my captured Governors?"
George asked of his father.
" I hear that Hamilton was offered a parole on condi
tion that he would not use his liberty in any way to speak
or influence any one against the colonies. He indignantly
refused to promise that, and so was returned to close cap
tivity. But I think when Boone came up to the legisla
ture he used some influence; at any rate Hamilton was
paroled and w,ent with Hay to England. Rocheblave
broke his parole and fled to New York."
The five fireplaces of the old Clark home roared a wel-
"DETROIT MUST BE TAKEN" 65
come that day up the great central chimney, and candles
gleamed at evening from dormer window to basement
when all the neighbours crowded in to hail " the Wash
ington of the West."
" Now, Rose, you and Nancy bake the seed cakes and
have beat biscuit," said Mrs. Clark to the fat cook in the
kitchen. " York has gone after the turkeys."
" Events are in desperate straits," said George at bed
time ; " I must leave at daylight." But earlier yet young
William was up to gallop a mile beside his brother on
the road to Richmond, whither the capital had been re
moved for greater safety.
" Is this the young Virginian that is sending home all
the western Governors? " exclaimed the people. An ova
tion followed him all the way.
" What is your plan ? " asked Governor Jefferson, after
the fiery cavalier had been received with distinction by
the Virginia Assembly.
" My plan is to ascend the Wabash in early Spring and
strike before reinforcements can reach Detroit, or escape
be made over the breaking ice of the Lakes. The rivers
open first."
George Rogers Clark, born within three miles of Mon-
ticello, had known Jefferson all his life, and save Patrick
Henry no one better grasped his plans. In fact, Jeffer
son had initiative and was not afraid of untried ventures.
" My dear Colonel, I have already written to Wash
ington that we could furnish the men, provisions, and
every necessary except powder, had we the money, for
the reduction of Detroit. But there is no money, — not
even rich men have seen a shilling in a year. Washing
ton to the north is begging aid, Gates in the south is
pleading for men and arms, and not a shilling is in the
treasury of Virginia/'
" But Detroit must be taken," said Clark with a solemn
emphasis. ' Through my aides I have this discovery :
a combination is forming to the westward, — a con
federacy of British and Indians, — to spread dismay to
our frontier this coming Spring. We cannot hesitate.
The fountain head of these irruptions must be cut off,
66 THE CONQUEST
the grand focus of Indian hostilities from the Mohawk
to the Mississippi."
Even as he spoke, Jefferson, pen in hand, was noting
points in another letter to Washington.
" We have determined to undertake it," wrote Jeffer
son, " and commit it to Clark's direction. Whether the
expense of the enterprise shall be defrayed by the Con
tinent or State we leave to be decided hereafter by Con
gress. In the meantime we only ask the loan of such
necessaries as, being already at Fort Pitt, will save time
and expense of transportation. I am, therefore, to solicit
Your Excellency's order to the commandant at Fort Pitt
for the articles contained in the annexed list."
Clark had the list in hand. "It is our only hope;
there is not a moment to be lost."
• On fleet horses the chain of expresses bore daily news
to the camp of Washington, but before his answer could
return, another express reined up at Richmond.
" Benedict Arnold, the traitor, has entered the Capes
of Virginia with a force of two thousand men."
It was New Year's Eve and Richmond was in a
tumult. On New Year's day every legislator was mov
ing his family to a place of safety. The very winds
were blowing Arnold's fleet to Richmond.
Virginia had laid herself bare of soldiers; every man
that could be spared had been sent south.
And Arnold? With what rage George Rogers Clark
saw him destroy the very stores that might have taken
Detroit, — five brass field-pieces, arms in the Capitol loft
and in waggons on the road, five tons of powder, tools,
quartermaster's supplies. Then the very wind that had
blown Arnold up the river turned and blew him back,
and the only blood shed was by a handful of militia under
George Rogers Clark, who killed and wounded thirty of
Arnold's men.
" I have an enterprise to propose," said the Governor
to Clark on return. " I have confidence in your men
from the western side of the mountains. I want to cap
ture Arnold and hang him. You pick the proper charac
ters and engage them to seize this greatest of all traitors.
"PETROIT MUST BE TAKEN" 67
I will undertake, if they are successful, that they shall
receive five thousand guineas reward among them."
" I cannot, Arnold is gone, I must capture Detroit."
More determined than ever, Clark and Jefferson went
on planning. " Yes, you must capture Detroit and
secure Lake Erie. You shall have two thousand men,
and ammunition and packhorses shall be at the Falls
of the Ohio, March 15, ready for the early break of
the ice."
Washington's consent had come, and orders for artil
lery. With Washington and Jefferson at his back, Clark
made indefatigable efforts to raise two thousand men to
rendezvous March 15.
Up the Blue Ridge his agents went and over to the
Holston; he wrote to western Pennsylvania; he visited
Redstone-Old-Fort, and hurried down to Fort Pitt. Fort
Pitt itself was in danger.
The Wabash broke and ran untrammelled, but Clark
was not ready. Cornwallis was destroying Gates at
Camden ; De Kalb fell, covered with wounds ; Sumter
was cut to pieces by Tarleton. The darkest night had
come in a drama that has no counterpart, save in the
Napoleonic wars that shook Europe in the cause of hu
man liberty.
War, war, raged from the Atlantic to the Mississippi.
The land was covered with forts and blockhouses. Every
hamlet had its place of refuge. Mills were fortified, and
private houses. Every outlying settlement was stock
aded. Every log house had its pickets and portholes.
Chains of posts followed the river fords and mountain
gaps from Ticonderoga to the Mohawk, from the Sus-
quehanna to the Delaware, to the Cumberland, to the
Tennessee. Anxious sentinels peered from the watch-
towers of wooden castles. Guns stood on the ramparts.
The people slept in barracks. Moats and drawbridges,
chained gates and palisades, guarded the sacred citadels
of America.
" And what if England wins ? " said one to Wash
ington.
" We can still retire to the Ohio and live in freedom,"
68 THE CONQUEST
for, like the last recesses of the Swiss Alps, it was thought
no nation could conquer the Alleghanies.
In desperation and unaware of the Virginian crisis
behind him, George Rogers Clark embarked four hun
dred men, all he could get of the promised two thousand.
Only a line he sent to Jefferson, " I have relinquished all
hope," but Jefferson at that hour was flying from Tarle-
ton, Cornwallis was coming up into Virginia, and Wash
ington with his ragged band of veteran Continentals was
marching down to Yorktown. There was no time to
glance beyond the mountains.
All the northwest, in terror of Clark, was watching
and fearing. If a blow was struck anywhere, " Clark did
it." Shawnees and Delawares, Wyandots at the north,
Choctaws and Chickasaws and Cherokees at the south,
British and Indians everywhere, were rising against de
voted Kentucky.
As Clark stepped on his boats at Pittsburg word flew
to remotest tribes, -
' The Long Knives are coming ! "
The red man trembled in his wigwam, Detroit redoubled
its fortifications, and Clark's forlorn little garrisons in the
prairies of the west hung on to Illinois.
In those boats Clark bore provisions, ammunition, ar
tillery, quartermaster's stores, collected as if from the
very earth by his undying energy, — everything but men,
men! Major William Croghan stood with him on the
wharf at Pittsburg, burning, longing to go, but honour
forbade, — he was out on parole from Charleston.
Peeping, spying, gliding, Indians down the Ohio would
have attacked but for fear of Clark's cannon. The " rear
guard of the Continental army " little knew the young
Virginian, the terror of his name. For him, Canada
staid at home to guard Detroit when she might have
wrested Yorktown.
With shouts of thanksgiving Louisville greeted Clark
and his four hundred; the war had come up to their
very doors. Never had the Indians so hammered away
at the border. Across the entire continent the late inter
mittent cannon shots became a constant volley.
"DETROIT MUST BE TAKEN" 69
Every family had its lost ones, — " My father, my
mother, my wife, my child, they slaughtered, burned, tor
tured, — / will hunt the Indian till I die! "
Detroit, Niagara, Michilimackinac — the very names
meant horror, for there let loose, the red bloodhounds
of war, the most savage, the most awful, with glittering,
knives, pressed close along the Ohio. The buffalo meat
for the expedition rotted while Clark struggled, an
guished in spirit, a lion chained, " Stationed here to repel
a few predatory savages when I would carry war to the
Lakes."
But troops yet behind, " almost naked for want of linen
and entirely without shoes," were trying to join Clark
down the wild Ohio. Joseph Brandt cut them off, —
Lochry and Shannon and one hundred Pennsylvanians,
— not one escaped to tell the tale.
Clark never recovered, never forgot the fate of Lochry.
" Had I tarried but one day I might have saved them ! "
In the night-time he seemed to hear those struggling cap
tives dragged away to Detroit, — " Detroit ! lost for the
want of a few men ! " For the first time the over- wrought
hero gave way to intoxication to drown his grief, — and
so had Clark then died, ''Detroit" might have been found
written on his heart.
Despair swept over Westmoreland where Lochry's men
were the flower of the frontier. Only fourteen or fifteen
rifles remained in Hannastown, — the Indians swooped
and destroyed it utterly.
XVIII
ON THE RAMPARTS
IN all his anguish about Detroit, with the energy of
desperation Clark now set to work making Louisville
stronger than ever.
" Boys, we must have defences absolutely impregnable ;
70 THE CONQUEST
we know not at what moment cannon may be booming
at our gates."
A new stronghold was founded, and around it a moat
eight feet deep and ten feet wide ; surrounding the moat
itself, was built a breastwork of log pens, filled with earth
and picketed ten feet high on top of the breastwork.
An acre was thus enclosed, and in that acre was a spring
that bubbles still in the streets of Louisville. Within
were mounted a double six-pounder captured at Vin-
cennes, four cannon, and eight swivels, and heaped
around were shells, balls, and grapeshot brought for the
Detroit campaign. With bakehouse and blockhouse,
bastion and barrack, no enemy ever dared attack Fort
Nelson.
" General Clark is too hard on the militia," the soldier
boys complained, but the hammering and pounding and
digging went on until Louisville was the strongest point
beyond the Alleghanies.
Back and back came the Indians, in battles and forays,
and still in this troublous time settlers were venturing
by flatboat and over the Wilderness Road into the Blue
Grass country. They seemed to fancy that Clark had
stilled the West, that here the cannon had ceased to rattle.
Emigrants on packhorses bound for the land of cane
and turkeys saw bodies of scalped white men every day.
Logan and his forest rangers, like knights of old, guarded
the Wilderness Road. Kenton and his scouts patrolled
the Ohio, crossing and recrossing on the track of maraud
ing savages. Boone watched the Licking ; Floyd held the
Bear Grass.
Fort Nelson was done, — its walls were cannon-proof.
Clark's gunboat lay on the water-front when a messenger
passed the sentinel with a letter.
In the little square room that Clark called his headquar
ters, the envoy waited. The young commandant read
and bowed his head, — was it a moment of irresolution?
" Who could have brought this letter? "
" Any Indian would bring it for a pint of rum," an
swered a well-known voice. Pulling off a mask, Connolly
stood before him.
ON THE RAMPARTS 71
It was as if Lord Dunmore had risen from the floor, -
Connolly had been Lord Dunmore' s captain commandant
of all the land west of the Blue Ridge. What was he
saying ?
" As much boundary of land on the west bank of the
Ohio as you may wish, and any title under that of a duke,
if you will abandon Louisville. I am sent to you by
Hamilton."
" What! " gasped Clark. " Shall I become an Arnold
and give up my country? Never! Go, sir, before my
people discover your identity."
Resolved to lock the secret in his own heart, Clark
spoke to no one. But that same night a similar offer was
made to John Floyd on the Bear Grass. He mentioned it
to Clark.
" We must never tell the men," they agreed ; " starving
and discouraged they might grasp the offer to escape the
Indian tomahawk." But years after Clark told his sister
Lucy, and Floyd told his wife, Jane Buchanan, — and
from them the tale came down to us.
As if enraged at this refusal, British and Indians rallied
for a final onslaught.
' The white men are taking the fair Kain-tuck-ee, the
land of deer and buffalo. If you beat Clark this time you
will certainly recover your hunting-grounds," said De
Peyster at the council fire.
In unprecedented numbers the redmen crossed the
Ohio, — station after station was invested ; then followed
the frightful battle of Blue Licks where sixty white men
fell in ten minutes. Kentucky was shrouded in mourning.
Again Clark followed swift with a thousand mounted
riflemen.
Among the Indians dividing their spoils and their cap
tives there sounded a sharp alarm, "The Long Knives!
The Long Knives ! "
" A mighty army on its march ! "
Barely had the Shawnees time to fly when Clark's fam
ished Kentuckians entered Old Chillicothe. Fires were
yet burning, corn was on the roasting sticks, but the foe
was gone.
;2 THE CONQUEST
" The property destroyed was of great amount, and the
quantity of provisions burned surpassed all idea we had
of the Indian stores/' Clark said in after years.
This second destruction of their villages and cornfields
chilled the heart of the Indians. Their power was broken.
Never again did a great army cross the Ohio.
But standing again on the ruins of Old Chillicothe, " I
swear vengeance ! " cried the young Tecumseh.
And Clark, the Long Knife, mourned in his heart.
" This might have been avoided ! this might have been
avoided ! Never shall we have peace on this frontier until
Detroit is taken ! "
XIX
EXIT CORNWALLIS
" F | iHE boy cannot escape me ! "
Lafayette was all that lay between Cornwallis
A and the subjugation of Virginia. The lithe little
Frenchman, only twenty-three years old, danced ever on
and on before him, fatiguing the redcoats far into the
heats of June.
The Virginia Legislature adjourned to Charlottesville,
In vain Cornwallis chased the boy and sent Tarleton on
his raid over the mountains, " to capture the Governor."
Like a flash he came, the handsome, daring, dashing
Colonel Tarleton, whose name has been execrated for a
hundred years.
Virginia was swept as by a tornado. Never a noise in
the night, never a wind could whistle by, but " Tarleton's
troop is coming! "
" Tarleton's troop! " Little John Randolph, a boy of
eight, his mother then lying in childbed, was gathered
up and hurried away ninety miles up the Appomattox.
" Tarleton's troop!" Beside the dead body of her
husband sat the mother of four-year-old Henry Clay,
EXIT CORNWALLIS 73
with her seven small children shuddering around her.
Standing on a rock in the South Anna River, the great
preacher had addressed his congregation in impassioned
oratory for the last time, and now on a bier he lay lifeless,
while the gay trooper raided the lands of his children.
Even Tarleton was moved by the widow's pallor as he
tossed a handful of coins on her table. She arose and
swept them into the fireplace, — " Never will I touch the
invaders' gold."
" Tarleton' s troop!" Back at Waxhaw, South Caro
lina, a lad by the name of Andrew Jackson bore through
life the scars of wounds inflicted by Tarleton' s men. At
that very hour, alone on foot his mother was returning
from deeds of mercy to the patriots caged in prison pens
by Tarleton. But the streams were cold, the forests dark ;
losing her way, overworn and weary, sank and died the
mother of Andrew Jackson.
" Tarleton' s troop ! " Jack Jouett at the Cuckoo Tavern
at Louisa saw white uniforms faced with green, and flut
tering plumes, and shining helmets riding by.
The fiery Huguenot blood rose in him. Before day
light Jack's hard-ridden steed reined up at Monticello.
" Tarleton's troop, three hours behind me! Fly! "
There was panic and scramble, — some of the legisla
tors were at Monticello. There was hasty adjournment
and flight to Staunton, across the Blue Ridge.
Assisting his wife, the slender, graceful Mrs. Jefferson,
into a carriage, the Governor sent her and the children
under the care of Jupiter, the coachman, to a neighbour
ing farmhouse, while he gathered up his State papers.
" What next, massa? " Martin, the faithful body-ser
vant, watching his master's glance and anticipating every
want, followed from room to room.
" The plate, Martin," with a wave of the hand Jeffer
son strode out from his beloved Monticello.
With Caesar's help Martin pulled up the planks of the
portico, and the last piece of silver went under the floor
as a gleaming helmet hove in sight. Dropping the plank,
imprisoning poor Caesar, Martin faced the intruder.
" Where is your master? Name the spot or I '11 fire ! "
74 THE CONQUEST
" Fire away, then," answered the slave. The trooper
desisted.
Tarleton and his men took food and drink, but de
stroyed nothing. The fame of Jefferson's kindness to
Burgoyne's captured army had reached even Tarleton,
for in that mansion books and music had been free to the
imprisoned British officers.
" An' now who be ye, an' whar are ye from? "
An old woman peered from the door of a hut in a
gorge of the hills, late in the afternoon.
" We are members of the Virginia Legislature fleeing
from Tarleton's raid."
" Ride on, then, ye cowardly knaves ! Here my hus
band and sons have just gone to Charlottesville to fight
for ye, an' ye a runnin' awa' wi' all yer might. Clar out ;
ye get naething here."
" But, my good woman, it would never do to let the
British capture the Legislature."
"If Patter ick Hennery had been in Albemarle, the
British dragoons would naever ha' passed the Rivanna."
" But, my good woman, here is Patrick Henry."
" Patterick Hennery? Patterick Hennery? Well,
well, if Patterick Hennery is here it must be all right.
Coom in, coom in to the best I have."
But Daniel Boone and three or four others were cap
tured, and carried away to Cornwallis to be released soon
after on parole.
"Tarleton's troop!" cried little Meriwether Lewis,
seven years old.
Sweeping down the Rivanna came the desperado to
the home of Colonel Nicholas Lewis, away in the Conti
nental army.
" What a paradise! " exclaimed Tarleton, raising his
hands.
"Why, then, do you interrupt it?" inquired Mrs.
Lewis, alone at home with her small children and slaves.
The trooper slept that night in his horseman's cloak
on the kitchen floor. At daylight Mrs. Lewis was awak
ened by a clatter in her henyard. Ducks, chickens,
turkeys, the troopers were wringing their necks. One
EXIT CORNWALLIS 75
decrepit old drake only escaped by skurrying under the
barn.
Bowing low till his plume swept the horse's mane,
Tarleton galloped away.
The wrath of Aunt Molly! " Here, Pompey, you just
catch that drake. Ride as fast as you can, and present it
to Colonel Tarleton with my compliments."
On flying steed, drake squawking and flouncing on his
back, the darkey flew after the troopers.
" Well, Pompey, did you overtake .Colonel Tarleton? "
was Aunt Molly's wrathful inquiry.
" Yes 'm."
"What did he say?"
" He put de drake in his wallet, and say he much
obleeged ! "
Little Meriwether, sitting on the gate-post, laughed at
his aunt's discomfiture.
The roll of a drum broke the stillness of Sabbath in
the Blue Ridge.
" Tarleton' s troop ! " By the bed of her sick husband
sat a Spartan mother at Staunton. Her sons were in the
army at the north, but three young lads, thirteen, fifteen,
and seventeen were there.
Placing their father's old firelock in their hands, " Go
forth, my children," she said, " repel the foot of the in
vader or see my face no more."
But Tarleton did not force the mountain pass, — the
boys went on down to join Lafayette.
From farm and forest, children and grandsires hurried
to Lafayette. The proud earl retired to the sea and
stopped to rest at the little peninsula of Yorktown, wait
ing for reinforcements.
Down suddenly from the north came Washington with
his tattered Continentals and Rochambeau's gay French
men, and the French fleet sailed into the Chesapeake.
Cornwallis was bottled up at Yorktown.
The boy, Lafayette, had simply put the stopper in the
bottle and waited.
Seventy cannon rolled in on Yorktown. George
Rogers Clark, all the West, was appealing to Washing-
76 THE CONQUEST
ton, but the great chief unmoved kept his eye on Lord
Cornwallis.
On the i Qth of October, 1781, the aristocratic marquis,
who had commenced his career as aide-de-camp to a king,
surrendered to the rebels of America.
" 'Wallis has surrendered! surrendered! surrendered! "
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark flung up their
caps with other boys and shouted with the best of them,
"' Wallis has surrendered!"
After the surrender of Cornwallis, Washington and
Lafayette and the officers of the French and American
armies went to Fredericksburg to pay their respects to
Mary, the mother of Washington. The entire surround
ing country was watching in gala attire, and among them
the old cavalier, John Clark of Caroline.
On his white horse Washington passed the mulberry
trees. Quick as a flash little William turned, — " Why,
father, he does look like my brother George! Is that
why people call our George the ' Washington of the
West ' ? "
A provisional treaty was signed at Paris, November
30, 1782, a few days after the return of George Rogers
Clark from that last Chillicothe raid. Slowly, by pack-
horse and flatboat, the news reached Kentucky.
The last of the British army sailed away. Washing
ton made his immortal farewell, and went back to his
farm, arriving on Christmas Eve. Bonfires and rockets,
speeches, thanksgiving and turkey, ended the year 1782.
But with his return from the last scene at Yorktown,
the father of Meriwether Lewis lay down and died, a
martyr of the Revolution.
THE OLD VIRGINIA HOME 77
XX
THE OLD VIRGINIA HOME
BACK over Boone's trace, the Wilderness Road he
had travelled so many times, went General George
Rogers Clark sometime in the early Spring of 1783,
past the thrifty fields of Fincastle and the Shenandoah
Germans, with their fat cattle and huge red barns. Every
year the stout Pennsylvanians were building farther and
farther up. Year by year the fields increased, and rosy
girls stacked the hay in defiance of all Virginian customs
across the Ridge.
But the man who a thousand miles to the west held
Illinois by the prowess of his arm and the terror of his
name, sprang not with the buoyant step of six years before
when he had gone to Virginia after the gunpowder. His
thoughts were at Kaskaskia, Vincennes, Louisville, where
his unsustained garrisons were suffering for food and
clothing.
" Peace, peace, peace ! " he muttered. " 'T is but a
mockery. Must Kentucky lie still and be scalped? "
Still the savages raided the border, not in numbers, but
in squads, persistent and elusive. Isham Floyd, the boy
drummer of Vincennes, had been captured by the savages
and three days tortured in the woods, and burnt at the
stake.
"My boy-brother in the hands of those monsters?"
exclaimed the great-hearted John Floyd of the Bear
Grass. A word roused the country, the savages were dis
persed, but poor Isham was dead. And beside him lay his
last tormentor, the son of an Indian chief, shot by the
avenging rifle of John Floyd.
Riding home with a heavy heart on the I2th of April, a
ball struck Colonel Floyd, passed through his arm, and
entered his breast. Behind the trees they caught a glimpse
of the smoking rifle of Big Foot, that chief whose son was
78 THE CONQUEST
slain. Leaping from his own horse to that of his brother,
Charles Floyd sustained the drooping form until they
reached the Bear Grass.
" Charles," whispered the dying man, " had I been
riding Pompey this would not have happened. Pompey
pricks his ears and almost speaks if a foe is near."
At the feet of Jane Buchanan her brave young husband
was laid, his black locks already damp with the dew of
death.
" Papa ! Papa ! " Little two-year-old George Rogers
Clark Floyd screamed with terror. Ten days later the
stricken wife, Jane Buchanan, gave birth to another son,
whom they named in honour of his heroic father.
With such a grief upon him, General George Rogers
Clark wended his lonesome way through the Cumberland
Gap to Virginia. Now in the night-time he heard young
Isham cry. Not a heart in Kentucky but bewailed the fate
of the drummer boy. And John Floyd, his loss was a
public calamity.
'' John Floyd, John Floyd," murmured Clark on his
lonely way, " the encourager of my earliest adventures,
truest heart of the West! "
Lochry's men haunted him while he slept. " Had I
not written they would not have come ! "
His debts, dishonoured, weighed like a pall, and deep,
deep, down in his heart he knew at last how much he loved
that girl in the convent at New Orleans. At times an
almost ungovernable yearning came over him to go down
and force the gates of her voluntary prison-house.
In May he was at Richmond. A new Governor sat in
the chair of Jefferson and Patrick Henry. To him Clark
addressed an appeal for the money that was his due.
But Virginia, bankrupt, impoverished, prostrate, an
swered only, — " We have given you land warrants,
what more can you ask?"
With heavy heart Clark travelled again the road to
Caroline.
There was joy in the old Virginia home, and sorrow.
Once more the family were reunited. First came Colonel
Jonathan, with his courtly and elegant army comrade
THE OLD VIRGINIA HOME 79
Major William Croghan, an Irish gentleman, nephew of
Sir William Johnson, late Governor of New York, and of
the famous George Croghan, Sir William's Indian Deputy
in the West.
In fact young Croghan crossed the ocean with Sir Wil
liam as his private secretary, on1 the high road to prefer
ment in the British army. But he looked on the struggling
colonists, and mused, —
' Their cause is just ! I will raise a regiment for
Washington."
While all his relatives fought for the King, he alone
froze and starved at Valley Forge, and in that frightful
winter of 1780 marched with Jonathan Clark's regiment
to the relief of Charleston. And Charleston fell.
" Restore your loyalty to Great Britain, and I will set
you free," said Major General Prevost, another one of
Croghan's uncles.
" I cannot," replied the young rebel. " I have linked
my fate with the .colonies."
Nevertheless General Prevost released him and his
Colonel, Jonathan Clark, on parole. Lieutenant Edmund
was held a year longer.
Directly to the home in Caroline, Colonel Jonathan
brought his Irish Major. And there he met — Lucy.
Then, with the exchange of prisoners, Edmund came,
damaged it is true, but whole, and John, John from the
prison ships, ruined.
At sight of the emaciated face of her once handsome
boy, the mother turned away and wept. Five long years
in the prison ship had done its work. Five years, where
every day at dawn the dead were brought out in cartloads.
Stifled in crowded holds and poisoned with loathsome
food, in one prison ship alone in eighteen months eleven
thousand died and were buried on the Brooklyn shore.
And then came the General, George Rogers, and Captain
Richard, from the garrison of Kaskaskia where he had
helped to hold the Illinois.
In tattered regimentals and worn old shirts they came,
— the army of the Revolution was disbanded without a
dollar.
80 THE CONQUEST
" And I, worse than without a dollar," said General
George Rogers. " My private property has been sacrificed
to pay public debts."
But from what old treasure stores did those girls bring
garments, homespun and new and woolly and warm,
prepared against this day of reunion ? The soldiers were
children again around their father's hearth, with mother's
socks upon their feet and sister's arms around their necks.
Jonathan, famous for his songs, broke forth in a fa
vourite refrain from Robin Hood : —
" And mony ane sings o' grass, o' grass,
And mony ane sings o' corn,
And mony ane sings o' Robin Hood
Kens little where he was born.
" It wasna in the ha', the ha',
Nor in the painted bower,
But it was in the gude greenwood
Amang the lily flower."
"And you call us lily flowers?" cried Fanny, the
beauty and the pet. " The lilies of the field, they toil not,
neither do they spin ; and here have we been spinning for
weeks and weeks to dress you boys again."
" And what has William been doing? "
" Learning to follow in the footsteps of my brothers,"
answered the lad of thirteen. " Another year and I, too,
could have gone as a drummer boy."
" Thank God, you '11 never have to," ejaculated the
General solemnly.
The old house rang with merriment as it had not in
years. The negroes, York and old York and Rose his
wife, Jane and Julia and Cupid and Harry, and Nancy
the cook, were jubilantly preparing a feast for welcome.
Other guests were there, — Colonel Anderson, aide-de
camp of Lafayette, who was to wed Elizabeth, the sister
next older than William; and Charles Mynn Thruston,
son of the " Fighting Parson," and Dennis Fitzhugh, daft
lovers of the romping Fanny.
Since before the Revolution Jonathan had been engaged
to Sarah Hite, the daughter of Joist Hite, first settler of
DOWN THE OHIO 8l
the Shenandoah. Thousands of acres had her father and
hundreds of indentured white servants. Joist Hite's
claim overlay that of Lord Fairfax; they fought each
other in the courts for fifty years. Should Hite win,
Sarah would be the greatest heiress in Virginia.
From the sight of happy courtship George Rogers
turned and ever and anon talked with his parents, ''solemn
as the judgment," said Fanny.
A few blissful days and the time for scattering came.
Again the old broad-porticoed farmhouse was filled with
farewells, — negro slaves held horses saddled.
" But we shall meet in Kentucky," said old John Clark
the Cavalier.
George Rogers bade them good-bye, waved a last kiss
back, whipped up his horse, and entered the forest.
In October John died. A vast concourse gathered
under the mulberry trees where the young Lieutenant lay
wrapped in the flag of his country, a victim of the prison
ship. Great was the indignation of friends as they laid
him away.
And now preparations were rapidly carried forward
for removal to Kentucky.
XXI
DOWN THE OHIO
THERE was truce on the border. The wondering
redmen heard that the great King had withdrawn
across the Big Water and that the Long Knives
were victors in the country.
With wondering minds Shawnee and Delaware, Wyan-
dot and Miami, discussed around their council fires the
changed situation. Very great had the redcoats appeared
in the eyes of the savages, with their dazzling uniforms,
and long, bright, flashing swords. But how terrible were
the Virginians of the Big Knives !
6
82 THE CONQUEST
The continental armies had been dispersed, but now
from their old war-ravaged homes of the Atlantic shore
they looked to the new lands beyond the Alleghanies.
Congress would pay them in these lands, and so the
scarred veterans of a hundred battles launched on the
emigrant trail.
In the Clark home there was busy preparation. Out
of attic and cellar old cedar chests were brought and
packed with the precious linen, fruit of many a day at the
loom. Silver and pewter and mahogany bureaus, high-
post bedsteads and carved mirrors, were carefully piled
in the waggons as John Clark, cavalier, turned his face
from tidewater Virginia.
Neighbours called in to bid them farewell. Mrs. Clark
made a last prayer at the grave of her son, the victim of
the prison ship.
" William, have you brought the mulberry cuttings? "
called the motherly Lucy.
" William, have you the catalpa seeds? " cried Fanny.
Leaving the old home with Jonathan to be sold, the
train started out, — horses, cattle, slaves, York riding
proudly at the side of his young master William, old
York and Rose, Nancy, Jane, Julia, Cupid and Harry
and their children, a patriarchal caravan like that of
Abraham facing an earlier west two thousand years
before.
Before and behind were other caravans. All Virginia
seemed on the move, some by Rockfish Gap and Staunton,
up the great valley of Virginia to the Wilderness Road,
on packhorses; others in waggons, like the Clarks, fol
lowing the Braddock route down to Redstone-Old-Fort
on the Monongahela, where boats must be built.
And here at Redstone was George Rogers Clark, come
up to meet them from the Falls. In short order, under
his direction, boatbuilders were busy. York and old York
took a hand, and William, in a first experience that was
yet to find play in the far Idaho.
The teasing Fanny looked out from her piquant sun-
bonnet. Lucy, more sedate, was accompanied by her be
trothed, Major Croghan.
DOWN THE OHIO 83
" My uncle, George Croghan, has lately died in New
York and left me his heir. I shall locate in Louis
ville," was the Major's explanation to his friend's
inquiry.
11 And what is the news from Virginia? "
" Your old friend Patrick Henry is Governor again.
Jonathan visited him last week," was William's reply.
" And Jonathan's wife, Sarah Hite, bids fair to secure
her fortune," added Fanny. " You see, when old Lord
Fairfax heard of Cornwallis's surrender he gave up.
' Put me to bed, Jo,' he said, ' it is time for me to die/
and die he did. Now his lands are in the courts."
" Mrs. Jefferson, who was ill, died as a result of the
excitement of the flight from Tarleton," said Lucy. " To
get away from his sorrow, Mr. Jefferson has accepted
the appointment of minister to France to succeed Dr.
Franklin, and has taken Martha and Maria with him.
They will go to school in Paris."
George Rogers Clark was a silent man. He spoke no
word of his recent trip to Philadelphia, in which Dr.
Franklin had grasped his hand and said, " Young man,
you have given an empire to the Republic."
" General Washington has just returned from a horse
back journey down into this country," added Major
Croghan. " He has lands on the Ohio."
" And have you no word of yourself or of Kentucky ? "
General Clark handed his father a notification from
the Assembly of Virginia. He read it aloud.
" The conclusion of the war, and the distressed situa
tion of the State with respect to its finances, call on us to
adopt the most prudent economy. You will, therefore,
consider yourself out of command."
" And you are no longer in the army? "
" No, nor even on a footing with the Continentals. I
was simply a soldier of the Virginia militia, and, as such,
have no claim even for the half pay allotted to all Con
tinental officers."
" But Virginia has ceded her western territories to
Congress with the distinct stipulation that expenses in
curred in subduing any British posts therein, or in ac-
84 THE CONQUEST
quiring any part of the territory, shall be reimbursed by
the United States."
" Is there any hope there? What has Congress? An
empty treasury. And who is to pay the bills incurred in
the Illinois conquest? Shall I, a private individual?"
" That would be impossible," commented the father.
" But I am not disheartened," continued George
Rogers. " When the Indians are quiet, my men hope
to build a city on the land granted us opposite the Falls.
And here is something from Jefferson, written before he
left for Europe."
William stood attentive while the letter was read.
"ANNAPOLIS, December 4, 1783.
DEAR SIR, — I find they have subscribed a very large sum
of money in England for exploring the country from the
Mississippi to California. They pretend it is only to pro
mote knowledge. I am afraid they have thought of colo
nising into that quarter. Some of us have been talking here
in a feeble way of making an attempt to search that country,
but I doubt whether we have enough of that kind of spirit
to raise the money. How would you like to lead such a
party? Though I am afraid our prospect is not worth the
question.
Your friend and humble servant,
THOMAS JEFFERSON."
" Does he want you to lead an exploring party to the
Pacific Ocean?" inquired William with intense interest.
" That is the substance of it. And I should want you
to accompany me."
Little did either then dream that William Clark would
lead that party, with another.
The boats were ready. Surmounted by the Stars and
Stripes of the " old thirteen " they started on their jour
ney. Suddenly the Monongahela closed with ice and
locked them at Pittsburg, where flurries of snow set the
sleigh-bells ringing.
Through deep drifts, under the guns of Fort Pitt, files
of Philadelphia traders were buying up skins and tallow,
to carry back over the mountains in their packsaddles
DOWN THE OHIO 85
that had come out loaded with salt and gunpowder.
Squaws were exchanging peltries for the white man's
tea and sugar. A great concourse of emigrants was
blocked for the winter. Every cabin was crowded.
After great exertions George had secured quarters
quite unlike the roomy old Virginian home.
" I must be gone to make peace with those Indians
who have been acting with the British, and take steps
toward securing titles beyond the Ohio."
Accompanied by two other commissioners, General
Clark set out for Fort Mclntosh. It was January before
the Indians gathered with Pierre Drouillard, interpreter
now for the United States.
" By the treaty of peace with England this land belongs
to the Thirteen Fires," was the basis of argument. " You
have been allies of England, and now by the law of na
tions the land is ours."
" No! No! " fiercely cried Buckongahelas.
" But we will divide with you. You are to release your
white, captives, and give up a part of your Ohio lands.
The rest you can keep. Detroit and Michilimackinac
belong to the Thirteen Fires." Then boundaries were
drawn.
" No! No!" cried Buckongahelas. Clark heeded not.
After deliberation the chiefs signed, — Wyandot, Ot
tawa, Chippewa, — all but Buckongahelas. " I am a
friend of Great Britain ! " roared the Delaware King.
Then to the surprise of all, suddenly striding past the
other commissioners, the swarthy chief took the hand of
General Clark. " I thank the Great Spirit for having
this day brought together two such warriors as Buckon
gahelas and the Long Knife." Clark smiled and returned
the compliment.
"Will the gorge break?" every frontiersman was
asking when George returned to Pittsburg.
Piled back for seventy miles the Alleghany was a range
of ice, heaped floe on floe. Where the muddy Monon-
gahela blends with the crystal Alleghany the boats lay
locked with a hundred others, awaiting the deluge.
Suddenly the melting snows of the Alleghanies burst;
86 THE CONQUEST
the ice loosened, tearing and cutting the branches of trees
overhanging the river; and slowly, with the ice, moved
the great fleet of flatboats.
Ever narrower and deeper and swifter, the Ohio
leaped with tremendous rush down its confined channel.
The trees on the uninhabited shores, never yet cut away,
held the embankment firm, and racing down on the peril
ous flood came the Clarks to the Falls of the Ohio, in
March of 1785.
Fascinated by the rush of waves, fourteen-year-old
William poled like a man. Could he dream what destruc
tion lay in their course? " L'annee des grandes eaux"
1785, is famous in the annals of the West as the year of
great waters. The floods came down and drowned out
old Ste. Genevieve and drove the inhabitants back to
the higher terrace on which that village stands to-day.
Above, the whole American Bottom was a swift running
sea, Kaskaskia and Cahokia were submerged by the sim
ultaneous melting of the snows, and nothing but its high
bold shore of "limestone rock saved St. Louis itself. ^ Pad
dling around in his boat, Auguste Chouteau ate breakfast
on the roofs of Ste. Genevieve.
At Louisville barely could boats be pulled in to the
Bear Grass. Below, waves foamed and whirled among
the rocks, that to-day have been smoothed by the hand
of man into a shallow channel.
Guided by skilful hands, many a trader's boat that
year took the chute of the Falls like an arrow ; over the
ledges that dammed the water back, down, down they
slid out of sight into that unknown West, where William
knew not that his brother had paved the way to Louisiana.
" Have you found us a tract?" inquired the anxious
mother.
" Land, mother? I own a dukedom, my soldiers and
I, one hundred and fifty thousand acres, on the Indian
side of the river. We have incorporated a town there,
Clarksville they call it. It will be a great city, — but
Louisville is safer at present."
That Spring they lived at Fort Nelson, with watchmen
on the ramparts.
MULBERRY HILL 87
" But we saw no Indians in coming down ! "
" True enough, the flood was a surprise so early in the
year. Wait a little, and you will hear more of this terri
fying river-route, where in low water it takes seven weeks
to run from Redstone to the Bear Grass. Then the mur
derous clutches of the Indians have free play among the
helpless emigrants. Let us be thankful for what you
escaped."
Almost while they were speaking a band of Indians
glided out of the woods not far away, snatched a boy
from a fence, and shot his father in the field.
" Don't kill me, just take me prisoner," said little
Tommy, looking up into the warrior's face.
At that instant an elder brother's rifle felled the Indian,
and the boy was saved to become the father of Abraham
Lincoln.
XXII
MULBERRY HILL
ON a beautiful eminence three miles south of Louis
ville, John Clark built his pioneer Kentucky home.
Louisville itself consisted of but a few log cabins
around a fortification built by George Rogers Clark.
This family home, so far from the centre, was stockaded
by itself, a double log house, two and a half stories high,
with hall through the middle.
Every night a negro stood sentinel, there were port
holes in the pickets, and Indians hid in the canebrakes.
Once while the young ladies were out walking an Indian
shot a little negro girl and they carried her back wounded,
behind the pickets at Mulberry Hill.
The floor of the long dining-room was of wood, hard
as a bone, and over the seven-foot mantel stag-horns and
swords of the Revolution were lit by the light of the
cavernous fireplace.
88 THE CONQUEST
Rigid economy and untiring industry had been the rule
at the old Clark home in Caroline, and not less was it
here. There were no pianos, but until midnight the hum
of the wheel made music.
Enchanted the young people listened to tale and song
and hum of wheel, while down the great chimney top
calmly smiled the pensive stars.
Little thought they of bare walls, low rafters, or small
windows. After the boys hauled in the logs on a hand-
sled, and built up a great flame, the whole world seemed
illuminated. The pewter basins shone like mirrors, and
while their fingers flew in the light of the fire, stories were
told of Kaskaskia, Vincennes, St. Louis. But the Donna?
Clark never spoke of her. It was a hidden grief that made
him ever lonely. When he saw the lovelight all around
him and sometimes left the room, the mother wondered
why sudden silence came upon the group.
At Mulberry Hill Lucy was married to Major Croghan,
who, on a farm five miles out, built Locust Grove, an
English mansion of the olden style, in its day the hand
somest in Louisville. And Fanny ? She was the belle of
Kentucky. In powdered wig and ruffles many a grave
Virginian tripped with her the minuet and contra dances
of the Revolution.
More and more young William became enamoured of
the Indian dress, and went about gaily singing the songs
of Robin Hood and hacking the meat with his hunting
knife.
Out over the game-trails of Kentucky, like the beaten
streets of Fredericksburg, the only city he ever knew,
young William went with the Boones, Kenton, and his
own famous brother, George Rogers Clark, in peltry cap
and buckskin hunting-shirt girded with a leathern belt.
Led by them, with what eagerness he shot his first
buffalo, deep in the woods of Kentucky. Not much longer
could bears, deer, and buffalo retreat to the cane. With
the coming of the Clarks an emigration set in that was to
last for a hundred years.
Even amusements partook of sportive adventure. Now
it was the hunter's horn summoning the neighbours to a
MULBERRY HILL 89
bear chase in the adjoining hills. William surpassed
the Indian himself in imitating the bark of the wolf, the
hoot of the owl, the whistle of the whippoorwill.
Daniel Boone came often to Mulberry Hill in leggings
and moccasins, ever hunting, hunting, hunting beaver,
bear and coon, wolves and wild-cats, deer and foxes, and
going back to trade their skins in Maryland for frontier
furniture, knives and buttons, scissors, nails, and tea.
Upon his shot-pouch strap Boone fastened his moccasin
awl with a buckhorn handle made out of an old clasp-
knife, and carried along with him a roll of buckskin to
mend his mocassins. While the grizzled hunter stitched
deftly at his moccasins, William and York sat by, engaged
in the same pastime, for wherever William went, York
was his shadow.
" Since poor Richard's uncertain fate I can never trust
the boy alone," said his mother. " York, it is your busi
ness to guard your young master." And he did, to the
ends of the earth.
When " Uncle Daniel," rolled in a blanket, threw him
self down on a bed of leaves and slept with his feet to the
fire to prevent rheumatism, York and William lay down
too, sleeping by turns and listening for Indians.
At daylight, loosely belting their fringed hunting shirts
into wallets for carrying bread, a chunk of jerked beef, or
tow for the gun, with tomahawk on the right side and
scalping knife on the left, each in a leathern case, again
they set off under the reddening forest.
Skilled in the lore of woodcraft, watchful of clouds and
stars and sun, an intimate student of insect life and own
brother to the wily beaver, bear, and buffalo, William
Clark was becoming a scientist.
Returning from the chase with the same sort of game
that graced the Saxon board before the Norman conquest,
he sat down to hear the talk of statesmen. For when
Clark's commission was revoked, Kentucky, unprotected,
called a convention to form a State.
Affairs that in European lands are left to kings and
their ministers, were discussed in the firelight of every
cabin. Public safety demanded'action. Exposed on three
9o THE CONQUEST
sides to savage inroads, with their Virginia capital hun
dreds of miles beyond forest, mountains, and rivers, no
wonder Kentucky pleaded for statehood.
In a despotic country the people sleep. Here every
nerve was awake. Discussion, discussion, discussion,
made every fireside a school of politics ; even boys in buck
skin considered the nation's welfare.
Before he was seventeen William Clark was made an
ensign and proudly donned the eagle and blue ribbon of
the Cincinnati, a society of the soldiers of the Revolution
of which Washington himself was president. Educated
in the backwoods and by the cabin firelight, young Wil
liam was already developing the striking bearing and bold
unwavering character of his brother.
" What can have become of Richard? " Every day the
mother heart glanced down the long avenue of catalpas
that were growing in front of Mulberry Hill.
Of the whole family, the gentle affectionate Richard
was an especial favourite. He was coming from Kas-
kaskia to see his mother, but never arrived. One day
his horse and saddlebags were found on the banks of
the Wabash. Was he killed by the Indians, or was he
drowned? No one ever knew.
Again George Rogers Clark was out making treaties
with the Indians to close up the Revolution, but British
emissaries had been whispering in their ears, " Make the
Ohio the boundary."
At last, after long delays, a few of the tribes came in to
the council at the mouth of the Great Miami, some in
friendship, some like the Shawnees, rudely suggestive of
treachery.
" The war is over," explained General Clark as chair
man ; "we desire to live in peace with our red brethren.
If such be the will of the Shawnees, let some of their
wise men speak."
There was silence as they whiffed at the council pipes.
Then a tall chief arose and glanced at the handful of
whites and at his own three hundred along the walls of
the council house.
" We come here to offer you two pieces of wampum.
MISSISSIPPI TROUBLES 91
You know what they mean. Choose." Dropping the
beaded emblems upon the table the savage turned to his
seat by the wall.
Pale, calm as a statue, but with flashing eye, Clark
tangled his slender cane into the belts and — flung them
at the chiefs.
"Ugh!"
Every Indian was up with knife unsheathed, every
white stood with hand on his sword. Into their very teeth
the Long Knife had flung back the challenge, " Peace, or
War."
Like hounds in leash they strained, ready to leap, when
the lordly Long Knife raised his arm and grinding the
wampum beneath his heel thundered, —
" Dogs, you may go! "
One moment they wavered, then broke and fled tumult-
uously from the council house.
All night they debated in the woods near the fort. In
the morning, " Let me sign," said Buckongahelas.
Smiling, Clark guided the hand of the boastful Del
aware, and all the rest signed with him.
XXIII
MISSISSIPPI TROUBLES
FOR the first time in their stormy history, the front
and rear gates of the Kentucky forts lay back on
their enormous wooden hinges, and all day long
men and teams passed in and out with waggon loads of
grain from the harvest fields. So hushed and still was
the air, it seemed the old Indian days were gone for ever.
At night the animals came wandering in from the woods,
making their customary way to the night pens. Fields
of corn waved undisturbed. around the forts.
But the truce was brief. Already the Cherokees were
slaughtering on the Wilderness Road, and beyond the
92 THE CONQUEST
Ohio, Shawnee and Delaware, wild at the sight of the
white man's cabin, rekindled the fires around the stake.
Thousands of emigrants were coming over the moun
tains from Carolina, and down the Ohio from Pittsburg
social boats lashed together rode in company, bark canoes,
pirogues, flat-boats, keelboats, scows, barges, bateaux and
brigades of bateaux, sweeping down with resistless Eng
lish, Scotch, Irish, Germans, Huguenots, armed for the
battle of the races.
Still the powerful fur traders of Quebec and Montreal
hung on to Detroit and Mackinac, still De Peyster op
posed giving up the peninsulas of Michigan.
" Pen the young republic east of the Alleghanies," said
France, Spain, England, when the Peace Treaty was
under consideration. But Clark's conquest compelled
them to grant the Illinois.
Before the ink was dry on the documents, Kentucky
was trading down the great river of De Soto.
' The West must trade over the mountains," said the
merchants of Philadelphia and Baltimore.
" The West will follow its rivers," answered Kentucky.
" Spain is Mistress of the Mississippi," said the Span
ish King to John Jay, the American minister at Madrid.
In vain flatboatmen with wheat and corn said, " We
are from Kentucky."
"What Kaintucke?" brayed the commandant at
Natchez. "I know no Kaintucke. Spain own both side
de river. I am ordered to seize all foreign vessel on de
way to New Orleong."
Without the Spaniard the trip was sufficiently hazard
ous. Indians watched the shores. Pirates infested the
bayous. Head winds made the frail craft unmanageable,
— snags leered up like monsters to pierce and swallow.
But every new settler enlarged the fields, and out of the
virgin soil the log granaries were bursting.
" Carry away our grain, bring us merchandise," was
the cry of expanding Kentucky.
But to escape the Indian was to fall into the hands of
the Spaniard, and the Spaniard was little more than a
legalised pirate.
MISSISSIPPI TROUBLES 93
Even the goods of the Frenchmen were seized with
the warning, " Try it again and we '11 send you to
Brazil."
The Frenchmen resented this infringement on their im
memorial right. iSince the days of the daring and cour
ageous Bienville who founded New Orleans, no man
had said them nay. A tremendous hatred of the Spaniard
grew up in the hearts of the Frenchmen.
In the midst of these confiscations there was distress
and anarchy in the Illinois. The infant republic had not
had time to stretch out there the strong arm of law.
Floods and continental money had ruined the confiding
Frenchmen ; the garrisons were in destitution ; they were
writing to Clark : —
" Our credit is become so weak among the French that
one dollar's worth of provisions cannot be had without
prompt payment, were it to save the whole country."
" And why has our British Father made no provision
for us," bewailed the Indians, " who at his beck and call
have made such deadly enemies of the Long Knives?
Our lands have been ravaged by fire and sword, and now
we are left at their mercy."
" Let us drive the red rascals out," cried the infuriated
settlers.
" No," said Washington, who understood and pitied
the red men. " Forgive the past. Dispossess them grad
ually by purchase as the extension of settlement demands
the occupation of their lands."
But five thousand impoverished Indians in the Ohio
country kept thirty thousand settlers in hot water all the
time. No lock on a barn door could save the horses, no
precaution save the outlying emigrant from scalping or
capture. Red banditti haunted the streams and forests,
dragging away their screaming victims like ogres of
mediaeval tragedy.
Clark grew sick and aged over it. " No commission,
no money, no right to do anything for my suffering
country! "
" Your brother, the General, is very ill/' said old John
Clark, coming out of the sick chamber at Mulberry Hill.
94 THE CONQUEST
In days to come there were generals and generals in the
Clark family, but George Rogers was always " the
General."
Into ten years the youthful commander had compressed
the exposure of a lifetime. Mental anguish and days in
the icy Wabash told now on his robust frame, and inflam
matory rheumatism set in from which he never recovered.
" The Americans are your enemies/' emissaries from
Detroit were whispering at Vincennes. " The Govern
ment has forsaken you. They take your property, they
pay nothing."
" We have nothing to do with the United States," said
the French citizens, weary of a Congress that heeded
them not. " We consider ourselves British subjects and
shall obey no other power."
Even Clark's old friend, The Tobacco's Son, had gone
back to his British father, and as always with Indians,
dug up the red tomahawk.
A committee of American citizens at Vincennes sent a
flying express to Clark.
" This place that once trembled at your victorious
arms, and these savages overawed by your superior
power, is now entirely anarchical and we shudder at the
daily expectation of horrid murder. . We beg you will
write us by the earliest opportunity. Knowing you to be
a friend of the distressed we look to you for assistance."
Such a call could not be ignored. Kentucky was
aroused and summoned her favourite General to the head
of her army. From a sick bed he arose to lead a thou
sand undisciplined men, and with him went his brother
William.
The sultry sun scorched, the waters were low, provi
sions did not arrive until nine days after the soldiers,
and then were spoiled. Fatigued, hungry, three hun
dred revolted and left ; nevertheless, the Indians had fled
and Vincennes was recovered.
Just then up the Wabash came a Spaniard with a boat
load of valuable goods. Clark promptly confiscated the
cargo, and out of them paid his destitute troops.
" It is not alone retaliation," said Clark, " It is a
MISSISSIPPI TROUBLES 95
warning. If Spain will not let us trade down the river,
she shall not trade up."
Kentucky applauded. They even talked of sending
Clark against the Spaniards and of breaking away from a
government that refused to aid them.
" General Clark seized Spanish goods? " Virginia was
alarmed and promptly repudiated the seizure. :< We are
not ready to fight Spain."
Clark's friends were disturbed. " You will be hung."
Clark laughed. " I will flee to the Indians first."
" We have as much to fear from the turbulence of our
backwoodsmen," said Washington, " as from the hostil
ity of the Spaniards."
But at this very time, unknown to Washington, the
Spaniards were arming the savages of the south, to ex
terminate these reckless ambitious frontiersmen.
Louisiana feared these unruly neighbours. Intriguers
from New Orleans were whispering, " Break with the
Atlantic States and league yourself with Spain."
Then came the rumour, " Jay proposes to shut up the
Mississippi for twenty-five years ! "
Never country was in such a tumult.
" We are sold! We are vassals of Spain! " cried the
men of the West. "What? Close the Mississippi for
twenty-five years as a price of commercial advantage on
the Atlantic coast? Twenty-five years when our grain
is rotting? Twenty-five years must we be cut off when
the Wilderness Road is thronged with packtrains, when
the Ohio is black with flatboats? Where do they think
we are going to pen our people? Where do they think
we are going to ship our produce? Better put twenty
thousand men in the field at once and protect our own
interests."
The bond was brittle ; how easily might it be broken !
Even Spain laughed at the weakness of a Union that
could not command Kentucky to give up its river. And
Kentucky looked to Clark. " We must conquer Spain
or unite with her. We must have the Mississippi. Will
you march with us on New Orleans ? "
Then, happily, Virginia spoke out for the West. " We
96 THE CONQUEST
must aid them. The free navigation of the Mississippi
is the gift of nature to the United States."
The very next day Madison announced in the Virginia
Assembly, " I shall move the election of delegates to a
Constitutional Convention." The stability of the Union
seemed pivoted upon an open river to the Gulf.
Veterans of the Revolution and of the Continental
Congress met to frame a constitution in 1787. After
weeks of deliberation with closed doors, the immortal
Congress adjourned. The Constitution was second only
to the Declaration of Independence. Without kings or
princes a free people had erected a Continental Republic.
The Constitution was adopted, and all the way into
Kentucky wilds were heard the roaring of cannon and
ringing of bells that proclaimed the Father of his Coun
try the first President of the United States.
" We must cement the East and the West," said Wash
ington. But that West was drifting away — with its
Mississippi.
About this time young Daniel Boone said, " Father, I
am going west."
Just eighteen, one year older than William Clark, in
the summer of 1787, he concluded to strike out for the
Mississippi.
:' Well, Dannie boy, thee take the compass," said his
father.
It was the old guide, as large as a saucer, that Lord
Dunmore gave Boone when he sent him out to call in
the surveyors from the Falls of the Ohio thirteen years
before.
Mounted on his pony, with a wallet of corn and a
rifle on his back, Boone rode straight on westward
thirty days without meeting a single human being.
Pausing on the river bank opposite St. Louis he hallooed
for an hour before any one heard him.
" Dat some person on de oder shore," presently said
old Rene Kiercereaux, the chorister at the village church.
A canoe was sent over and brought back Boone. As
if a man had dropped from the moon, French, Spanish,
and Indian traders gathered. He spoke not a word of
ST. CLAIR
97
French, but Auguste Chouteau's slave Petrie could talk
English.
" Son of Boone, de great hunter ? Come to my house !"
11 Come to my house ! "
The hospitable Creoles strove with one another for
the honour of entertaining the son of Daniel Boone. For
twelve years he spent his summers in St. Louis and his
winters in western Missouri, hunting and trapping.
" The best beaver country on earth," he wrote to his
father. " You had better come out."
" Eef your father, ze great Colonel Boone, will re
move to Louisiana," said Senor Zenon Trudeau, the
Lieutenant-Governor, " eef he will become a citizen of
Spain, de King will appreciate de act and reward him
handsomely."
XXIV
ST. CLAIR
ENTUCKY! Kentucky! I hear nothing else,"
exclaimed the Fighting Parson of the Revolution,
ho had thrown aside his prayer-book and gown
to follow the armies of Washington. " If this western
exodus continues Virginia bids fair to be depopulated."
Even Jack Jouett, who had ridden to warn Jefferson of
Tarleton's raid, had gone to become an honoured member
of Kentucky's first legislature.
" Father, let me go."
Charles Mynn Thruston, the son of the Fighting Par
son, had long desired to follow Fanny Clark, but his
father held him back. Smiling now at the ardour of his
son, he said, " You may go, my boy. I am thinking of
the western country myself."
Preparations were immediately made, business affairs
settled, and a farewell dinner brought friends to historic
Mount Zion, the famous Shenandoah seat of the Fighting
Parson.
7
98 THE CONQUEST
" A strangah desiahs to know, sah, if he can get dinnah,
sah," announced black Sambo.
" Certainly, certainly." Parson Thruston was the soul
of hospitality. " Bring him at once to the table, Sambo."
The stranger seated himself and ate in silence.
" I perceive," remarked the Parson after the courses
had been removed, " I perceive that you are a traveller.
May I inquire whence you come? "
Every ear was intent. " From Kentucky, sir," an
swered the stranger.
" Ah, that is fortunate. I am about to leave for that
country myself," exclaimed young Thruston, " and shall
be glad to hear such news as you may have to communi
cate."
The stranger smiled and pondered. " The only inter
esting incident that I recall before my departure from
Louisville, was the marriage of the Kentucky belle, Miss
Fanny Clark, to Dr. O' Fallen."
As if struck by a bolt from heaven, Charles Mynn
Thruston fell unconscious to the floor.
Dr. O' Fallen was a young Irish gentleman of talent
and learning. An intimate friend of the Governor of
South Carolina, just before the Revolution he had come
to visit America, but espousing the cause of the colonists,
the Governor promptly clapped him into prison.
" Imprisoned O'Fallon ! " The people of Charleston
arose, liberated him, and drove the Governor to the British
fleet in the harbour.
Dr. O'Fallon enlisted as a private soldier. But sur
geons were needed, — he soon proved himself one of skill
unexcelled in America. General Washington himself
ordered him north, and made him Surgeon-General in his
own army. Here he remained until the close of the war,
and was thanked by Congress for his services.
And now he had visited Kentucky to assist in securing
the navigation of the Mississippi, and met — - Fanny.
With the charming Fanny as his wife, Dr. O'Fallon
rode many a mile in the woods, the first great doctor of
Louisville.
Other emigrants were bringing other romances, and
ST. CLAIR 99
other tragedies. " Ohio ! Ohio ! We hear nothing but
Ohio ! " said the people of New England.
One rainy April morning the " Mayflower," a flatboat
with a second Plymouth colony, turned into the Mus-
kingum and founded a settlement".
" Marie, Marie Antoinette, — did she not use her in
fluence in behalf of Franklin's mission to secure the
acknowledgment of American independence? Let us
name our settlement Marietta."
So were founded the cities of the French king and
queen, Louisville and Marietta. A few months later,
Kentuckians went over and started Cincinnati on the site
of George Rogers Clark's old block-house.
Into the Ohio, people came suddenly and in swarms,
" institutional Englishmen," bearing their household gods
and shaping a state.
" These men come wearing hats," said the Indians.
Frenchmen wore handkerchiefs and never tarried.
Surveyors came.
Squatting around their fires, with astonishment and
fear the Indians watched " the white man's devil," squint
ing over his compass and making marks in his books.
Wherever the magical instrument turned all the best
lands were bound with chains fast to the white man.
The Indians foresaw their approaching destruction and
hung nightly along the river shore, in the thick brush
under the sycamores, stealing horses and sinking boats.
With tomahawk in hand, a leader among them was young
Tecumseh.
" The Ohio shall be the boundary. No white man shall
plant corn in Ohio ! " cried the Indian.
" Keep the Ohio for a fur preserve," whispered Detroit
at his back.
While wedding bells were ringing at Mulberry Hill,
Marietta was suffering. The gardens were destroyed by
Indian marauders, the game was driven off, and great was
the privation within the walled town.
That was the winter when Governor St. Clair came with
his beautiful daughter Louisa, the fleetest rider in the
chase, the swiftest skater on the ice, and, like all pioneer
ioo THE CONQUEST
girls, so skilled with the rifle that she could bring down
the bird on the wing, the squirrel from the tree.
Creeping out over the crusty February snow, every
family in the settlement had its kettle in the sugar orchard
boiling down the maple sap. Corn-meal and sap boiled
down together formed for many the daily food.
But with all the bravado of their hearts, men and
women passed sleepless vigils while the sentinel stood all
night long in the lonely watchtower of the middle block
house. At any moment might arise the cry, " The In
dians ! The Indians are at the gates ! " and with the long
roll of the drum beating alarm every gun was ready at a
porthole and every white face straining through the dark.
When screaming wild geese steering their northern
flight gave token of returning spring, when the partridge
drummed in the wood and the turkey gobbled, when the
red bird made vocal the forest and the hawthorn and
dogwood flung out their perfume, then too came the
Indian from his winter lair.
" Ah," sighed many a mother, " I prefer the days of
gloom and tempest, for then the red man hugs his win
ter fire."
Always among the first in pursuit of marauding In
dians, William Clark as a cadet had already crossed the
Ohio with General Scott, " a youth of solid and promising
parts and as brave as Caesar," said Dr. O'Fallon.
Joseph Brant, Thayendanegea, presented a memorial to
Congress insisting upon the Ohio as the Indian boundary.
His son came down to Marietta.
" Ah, yes," was the whispered rumour at Marietta,
" young Brant, the educated son of the famous Mohawk
leader, aspires to the hand of. Louisa St. Clair." But the
Revolutionary General spurned his daughter's dusky
suitor.
The next day after New Year's, 1791, the Indians
swept down on Marietta with the fiendish threat, " Before
the trees put forth their leaves again no white man's cabin
shall smoke beyond the Ohio."
" Capture St. Clair alive," bade the irate Mohawk
chieftain. " Shoot his horse under him but do not
ST. CLAIR ioi
kill him." Did he hope yet to win consent to his mar
riage with Louisa?
The next heard of St. Clair was when the last shattered
remnant of his prostrate army fell back on Cincinnati, a
defeat darker, more annihilating, more ominous than
Braddock's.
" My God," exclaimed Washington, " it 's all over !
St. Clair 's defeated — routed ; the officers are nearly all
killed, the men by wholesale ; the rout is complete — too
shocking to think of — and a surprise into the bargain."
No wonder Secretary Lear stood appalled as the great
man poured forth his wrath in the house at Philadelphia.
Fifteen hundred went out from Cincinnati, — five hun
dred came back. A thousand scalps had Thayendanegea.
The news came to Mulberry Hill like a thunderbolt.
Kentucky, even Pittsburg, looked for an immediate savage
inundation, — for was not all that misty West full of
warriors ? The old fear leaped anew. Like an irresistible
billow they might roll over the unprotected frontier.
From his bed of sickness General Clark started up.
"Ah, Detroit! Detroit! Hadst thou been taken my
countrymen need not have been so slaughtered."
At Marietta, up in the woods and on the side hills,
glittered multitudes of fires, the camps of savages. Hun
ger added its pangs to fear. The beleaguered citizens sent
all the money they could raise by two young men to buy
salt, meat, and flour at Redstone-Old-Fort on the Monon-
gahela. Suddenly the river closed with ice ; in destitution
Marietta waited.
' They have run off with the money," said some.
' They have been killed by Indians," said others. But
again, as suddenly, the ice broke, and early in March the
young men joyfully moored their precious Kentucky ark
at the upper gate of the garrison at Marietta.
102 THE CONQUEST
XXV
THE SWORD OF "MAD ANTHONY" WAYNE
" A BOTHER defeat will ruin the reputation of the
i\ government," said Washington, as he sent out
JL JLuMad Anthony" Wayne, the uproarious Quaker
general, with ruffles, queue, and cocked hat, the stormer
of Stony Point in the Revolution.
In vain Wayne sent commissioners to treat with the
Indians. Elated with recent victories, " The Ohio shall
be the boundary," was the defiant answer.
An Indian captured and brought to Wayne said of the
British : " All their speeches to us are red, red as blood.
All the wampum and feathers are painted red. Our war-
pipes and hatchets are red. Even the tobacco is red for
war."
" My mind and heart are upon that river," said Corn-
planter, an Indian chief, pointing to the Ohio. " May
that water ever continue to be the boundary between the
Americans and the Indians."
Commissioned by Washington First Lieutenant of the
Fourth Sub-Legion, on the first of September, 1792, Wil
liam Clark crossed the Ohio and spent the winter at
Legionville where Wayne was collecting and drilling his
army.
" I will have no six months men," said Wayne. " Two
years will it take to organise, drill, and harden them be
fore we think of taking the field."
" We are certain to be scalped," whispered timorous
ones, remembering St. Clair's slaughter. Hundreds de
serted. The very word Indian inspired terror.
But horse, foot, and artillery, he drilled them, the
tremblers took courage, and the government, at last
awakened, stood firmly behind with money and supplies.
" Remember, Stony Point was stormed with unloaded
muskets. See! You must know the use of the broad-
THE SWORD OF "MAD ANTHONY" WAYNE 103
sword and of the bayonet, a weapon before which the
savages cannot stand."
At work went " Mad Anthony " teaching his men to
load and fire upon the run, to leap to the charge with
loud halloos, anticipating all possible conditions.
" Charge in open order. Each man rely on himself,
and expect a personal encounter with the enemy." The
men caught his spirit. Wayne's Legion became a great
military school.
Now he was drilling superb Kentucky cavalry, as per
fectly matched as the armies of Europe, sorrel and bay,
chestnut and gray, bush-whacking and charging, leap
ing ravines and broken timber, outdoing the Indians
themselves in their desperate riding.
And with all this drill, Wayne was erecting and gar
risoning forts. In the fall of 1793, Lieutenant Clark
was dispatched to Vincennes.
" It appears that all active and laborious commands
fall on me," he wrote to his brother Jonathan, in Vir
ginia. " Not only labour, but I like to have starved, —
was frozen up in the Wabash twenty days without pro
visions. In this agreeable situation had once more to
depend on my rifle."
After several skirmishes with Indians, Lieutenant
Clark returned to Fort Washington (Cincinnati) in
May, to be immediately dispatched with twenty-one dra
goons and sixty cavalry to escort seven hundred pack-
horses laden with provisions and clothing to Greenville,
a log fort eighty miles north of Cincinnati.
The Shawnees were watching. Upon this rich prize
fell an ambuscade of sixty Indians. Eight men were
killed, the train began to retreat, when Clark came dash
ing up from the rear, put the assailants to flight, and saved
the day. For this he was thanked by General Wayne.
Washington, Jefferson, the whole country impatiently
watched for news of Wayne on the Ohio.
Drill, drill, drill, — keeping out a cloud of scouts that
no peering Indian might discover his preparations, Wayne
exercised daily now with rifle, sabre, and bayonet until
no grizzly frontiersman surpassed his men at the target,
104 THE CONQUEST
no fox-hunter could leap more wildly, no swordsman
more surely swing the sharp steel home. At the sight
young Tennesseeans and Kentuckians, Virginians of the
border and Pennsylvanians of lifetime battle, were eager
for the fray.
About midsummer, 1794, Wayne moved out with his
Legion, twenty-six hundred strong, and halted at Fort
Greenville for sixteen hundred Kentucky cavalry. Bri
gades of choppers were opening roads here and there to
deceive.
" This General that never sleeps is cutting in every
direction," whispered the watchful Shawnees. " He is
the Black Snake."
For a last time Wayne offered peace. His messengers
were wantonly murdered.
The issue at Fallen Timbers lasted forty minutes, —
the greatest Indian battle in forty years of battle. Two
thousand Indians crouching in the brush looked to see
the Americans dismount and tie their horses as they did
in St. Clair's battle, — but no, bending low on their
horses with gleaming sabres and fixed bayonets, on like
a whirlwind came thundering the American cavalry.
" What was it that defeated us? It was the Big Wind,
the Tornado," said the Indians.
Matchekewis was there from Sheboygan with his war
riors, the Black Partridge from Illinois, and Buckonga-
helas. The Shawnees had their fill of fighting that day;
Tecumseh fell back at the wild onset, retreating inch by
inch.
William Clark led to the charge a column of Ken
tuckians and drove the enemy two miles. But why
enumerate in this irresistible legion, where all were
heroes on that 2Oth of August, 1794.
Wayne's victory ended the Revolution. Ninety days
after, Lord St. Helens gave up Ohio in his treaty with
Jay, and England bound herself to deliver the north
western posts that her fur traders had hung on to so
vainly.
Niagara, Michilimackinac, Detroit, keys to the Lakes,
entrepots to all the fur trade of the Northwest, were lost
THE SWORD OF "MAD ANTHONY" WAYNE 105
to Britain for ever. It was hardest to give up Detroit, -
it broke up their route and added many a weight to the
weary packer's back when the fur trade had to take a
more northern outlet along the Ottawa.
It was ten o'clock in the morning of July u, 1796,
when the Detroiters peering through their glasses espied
two vessels. " The Yankees are coming! "
A thrill went through the garrison, and even through
the flag that fluttered above. The last act in the war of
independence was at hand.
The four gates of Detroit opened to be closed no more,
as the drawbridge fell over the moat and the Americans
marched into the northern stronghold. It was Lernoult's
old fort built so strenuously in that icy winter of 1779-80,
when " Clark is coming " was the watchword of the
north.' Scarce a picket in the stockade had been changed
since that trying time. Blockhouse, bastion, and battery
could so easily have been taken, that even at this day we
cannot suppress a regret that Clark had not a chance at
Detroit !
Barefooted Frenchmen, dark-eyed French girls, and
Indians, Indians everywhere, came in to witness the
transfer of Detroit. At noon, July n, 1796, the Eng
lish flag was lowered and the Stars and Stripes went up
where Clark would fain have hung them seventeen years
before.
And the old cellar of the council house! Like a tomb
was its revelation, for there, mouldered with the must of
years, lay two thousand scalps, long tresses of women,
children's golden curls, and the wiry locks of men.
thrown into that official cellar in those awful days that
now were ended.
The merry Frenchmen on their pipestem farms, — for
every inhabitant owned his pathway down to the river,
— the merry Frenchmen went on grinding their corn by
their old Dutch windmills, went on pressing their cider
in their gnarled old apple orchards. They could not
change the situation if they would, and they would not
if they could. The lazy windmills of Detroit swung
round and round as if it had been ever thus. Still the
io6 THE CONQUEST
Indians slid in and out and still the British traders lin
gered, loath to give up the fur trade of the Lakes.
The next year after Wayne's victory the last buffalo
in Ohio was killed, and in 1796 the first American cabins
were built at Cleveland and Chillicothe. For the first
time the Ohio, the great highway, was safe. Passenger
boats no longer had bullet-proof cabins, no longer trailed
cannon on their gunwales. In that year twenty thousand
emigrants passed down the Ohio. Astonished and help
less the red men saw the tide. By 1800 there were more
whites in the Mississippi valley than there were Indians
in all North America.
XXVI
THE SPANIARD
EARLY in April of 1793 a company of French mer
chants sat at a dinner in New Orleans. Before
them magnolias bloomed in the plaza. Out in the
harbour their vessels were flying the Spanish flag.
" Spain has declared war against France. A French
frigate is sailing for the Gulf."
Like a bomb the announcement burst in their midst.
The fine and handsome face of Charles De Pauw was
lit with determination. He had come over with Lafayette,
and had invested a fortune in the new world.
" My ships are in danger. I will haul down the Spanish
colours and float the American flag. Long enough have
the Frenchmen of Missouri and Illinois endured the Span
ish yoke. Long enough have our cargoes been confis
cated and our trade ruined by unnecessary and tyrannical
restrictions."
" But America will not help us."
" The Kentuckians will," answered De Pauw. " Al
ready they are begging George Rogers Clark to march on
New Orleans."
THE SPANIARD 107
A huzza rang round the table. " We shall be here to
help him."
" Every settlement that borders the Mississippi will
join with us. Spain rules to Pittsburg, dictates prices,
opens and closes markets. Will Americans endure that?.
From New Orleans to British America, Spain stretches
an invisible cordon, ' thus far and no farther.' All beyond
is the private park of Don Carlos IV."
"•What will Congress do?"
" Congress? " echoed another. " What does it matter
to those people beyond the Alleghanies? They are very
far away. Europe is not so remote. Our interests lie
with Mississippi and the sea."
" But that would dismember the Union."
" Will it dismember the Union for the Louisianians to
break their fetter from Spain and thereby give us a market
clear of duty? The Kentuckians, equally with us, are
irritated at the Spanish Government. We have a right to
strike Spain."
Charles De Pauw renamed his schooner the " Maria "
and sailed out of the Gulf under the Stars and Stripes.
On the way to New York he met the frigate returning
that brought the French minister, Charles Genet, to
Charleston.
Acres of flatboats lay freighted on the dimpling Ohio.
Corn, wheat, oats, rye, — the worn-out tobacco lands of
Virginia knew nothing like it. But the Spaniard stood at
the gate and locked up the river.
"A King?" Americans laughed at the fancy. "A
King to check or hinder us in our rights? Who shall
refuse us? Are we not Americans?"
" The Mississippi is ours," cried Kentucky. " By the
law of nature, by the authority of numbers, by the right
of necessity. If Congress will not give it to us, we must
take it ourselves."
And now France —
George Rogers Clark was profoundly moved by the
French crusade for liberty. " We owe it to France to
help her. Was not France our friend in the time of
trouble?"
io8 THE CONQUEST
Then he wrote to the French minister, tendering his
services to France in her arduous struggle:
" I would begin with St. Louis, a rich, large, and populous
town, and by placing two or three frigates within the Mis
sissippi's mouth (to guard against Spanish succours) I
would engage to subdue New Orleans, and the rest of
Louisiana. If farther aided I would capture Pensacola;
and if Santa Fe and the rest of New Mexico were objects —
I know their strength and every avenue leading to them, for
conquest. — All the routes as well as the defenceless situa
tion of those places are perfectly known to me and I possess
draughts of all their defences, and estimates of the greatest
force which could oppose me. If France will be hearty and
secret in this business my success borders on certainty. —
The route from St. Louis to Santa Fe is easy, and the places
not very distant. . . . To save Congress from a rupture
with Spain on our account, we must first expatriate ourselves
and become French citizens. This is our intention."
On its errand of good or ill the letter sped to the
French minister to the United States, and lo! that min
ister was Genet, just landed at Charleston.
Genet had come from Revolutionary France, at this
moment fighting all Europe, so frightfully had upblazed
the tiny spark of liberty borne back by the soldiers of
Rochambeau.
Andre Michaux was instructed to hasten to the Falls
of the Ohio with this message to George Rogers Clark :
" The French minister has filled out this blank com
mission from his Government making you a Marshal of
France, Major General and Commander-in-Chief of the
French Legion on the Mississippi."
Thus had Genet answered the letter.
New Orleans was watching. " The Americans are
threatening us with an army assembling on the Ohio,"
wrote Carondelet in alarm to Spain.
" Ill-disposed and fanatical citizens in this Capital,"
he added, " restless and turbulent men infatuated with
Liberty and Equality, are increased with every vessel that
comes from the ports of France."
THE SPANIARD 109
He begged Spain to send him troops from Cuba. He
begged the Captain General of Cuba to send him troops
from Havana.
Gayoso put his fort at Vicksburg in defence and Caron
delet sent up a division of galleys to New Madrid and St.
Louis.
But Carondelet, the Governor of Louisiana, had his
hands full. Frenchmen of his own city were signing
papers to strike a blow for France. He would build de
fences, — they opposed and complained of his measures.
Merchants and others whose business suffered by the un
certainties of commerce took no responsibility as the domi
neering little Baron endeavoured to fortify New Orleans
with palisaded wall, towers, and a moat seven feet deep
and forty feet wide.
" It may happen that the enemy will try to surprise the
plaza on a dark night," said the Baron.
All the artillery was mounted. Haughty Spanish cav
aliers with swords and helmets paced the parapets of the
grim pentagonal bastions. Watchmen with spears and
lanterns guarded the gates below. The city was in terror
of assault. At every rise of the river Carondelet looked
for a filibustering army out of the north. By every ship
runners were sent to Spain.
News of the intended raid penetrated even the Ursuline
Convent. Sister Infelice paled when she heard it, gave a
little gasp, and fainted.
" Clearly she fears, the gentle sister fears these northern
barbarians," remarked the Mother Superior. " Take her
to her chamber."
And St. Louis, — not since 1780 had she been so
alarmed. The Governor constructed a square redoubt
flanked by bastions, dug a shallow moat, and raised a fort
on the hill. Seventeen grenadiers with drawn sabres
stood at the drawbridge.
" Immediately on the approach of the enemy, retreat
to New Madrid," was the order of this puissant Governor.
George Rogers Clark, who had planned and exe
cuted the conquest of Illinois, burned now for the con
quest of Louisiana. And the West looked to him; she
I io THE CONQUEST
despised and defied the Spaniard as she despised and
defied the Indian. They blocked the way, they must
depart.
Clark's old veteran officers Christy, Logan, Mont
gomery, sent word they would serve under his command.
The French squadron at Philadelphia was to set sail for
the Gulf.
Major Fulton and Michaux, Clark's right-hand men,
travelled all over the West enlisting men, provision?, and
money. De Pauw engaged to furnish four hundred bar
rels of flour and a thousand-weight of bacon, and to send
brass cannon over the mountains. In December Clark's
men were already cutting timber to build boats on the
Bear Grass. Five thousand men were to start in the
Spring, provided Congress did not oppose and Genet
could raise a million dollars.
In despair Carondelet wrote home, saying that if the
project planned was carried into effect, he would have no
other alternative but to surrender.
" Having no reinforcements to hope for from Havana,
I have no further hope than in the faults the enemy may
commit and in accidents which may perhaps favour
us."
Carondelet gave up. In March he wrote again, " The
commandant at Post Vincennes has offered cannon for
the use of the expedition."
Early in January Clark was writing to De Pauw,
" Have your stores at the Falls by the 2Oth of February,
as in all probability we shall descend the river at that
time."
Montgomery reported, " arms and ammunition, five
hundred bushels of corn and ten thousand pounds of pork,
also twenty thousand weight of buffalo beef, eleven hun
dred weight of bear meat, seventy-four pair venison hams,
and some beef tongues."
With two hundred men Montgomery lay at the mouth
of the Ohio ready to cross over. Not ninety Spaniards
of regular troops were there to defend St. Louis, and two
hundred militia, and the Governor had only too much
reason to fear that St. Louis would open her gates and
THE SPANIARD ill
join the invader. All that was lacking was money. Hun
dreds of Kentuckians waited the signal to take down their
guns and march on New Orleans.
But the ministers of Spain and of Great Britain had not
been quiet. They both warned Washington. Could he
hold the lawless West? It was a problem for statesmen.
Jefferson wrote to Governor Shelby of Kentucky to
restrain the expedition.
" I have grave doubts," Governor Shelby answered,
" whether there is any legal authority to restrain or to
punish them. For, if it is lawful for any one citizen of the
state to leave it, it is equally so for any number of them
to do it. It is also lawful for them to carry any quantity
of provisions, arms, and ammunition. — I shall also feel
but little inclination to take an active paft in punishing or
retaining any of my fellow citizens for a supposed inten
tion only, to gratify the fears of the ministers of a prince
who openly withholds from us an invaluable right, and
who secretly instigates against us a most savage and cruel
enemy."
Washington promptly issued a proclamation of neu
trality and requested the recall of Genet. From the new
Minister of France Clark received formal notice that the
conquest of Louisiana was abandoned. But Spain had
had her fright. She at once opened the river, and the
mass of collected produce found its way unimpeded to
the sea.
In June Congress passed a law for ever forbidding such
expeditions.
" I have learned that the Spaniards have built a fort at
Chickasaw Bluff, on this side of the river," said General
Wayne, one night in September, 1795, summoning Wil
liam Clark to his headquarters. "I desire you to go down
to the commanding officer on the west side and inquire his
intentions."
Why, of all that army, had Wayne chosen the young
lieutenant of the Fourth Sub-Legion for this errand?
Was it because he bore the name of Clark? Very well;
both knew why Spain had advanced to the Chickasaw
Bluff.
H2 THE CONQUEST
As Washington went forty years before to inquire of
the French, " Why are you building forts on the
Ohio?" so now William Clark, on board the galiot,
" La Vigilante," dropped down to New Madrid and
asked the Spaniard, " Why are you building forts on
the Mississippi ? "
Down came Charles De Hault De Lassus, the Com
mandant himself. " I assure you we have been very far
from attempting to usurp the territory of a nation with
whom we desire to remain in friendship," protested the
courtly Commandant with a wave of his sword and a
flutter of his plume. " But the threats of the French
republicans living in the United States," - he paused for
a reply.
" Calm yourself," replied Lieutenant Clark. " Read
here the pacific intentions of my country."
None better than William Clark understood the virtues
of conciliation and persuasion. " I assure you that the
United States is disposed to preserve peace with all the
powers of Europe, and with Spain especially."
With mutual expressions of esteem and cordial parting
salvos, Lieutenant Clark left his Spanish friends with a
mollified feeling toward " those turbulent Americans."
Nevertheless George Rogers Clark had opened the
river, to be closed again at peril.
Among the soldiers at Wayne's camp that winter was
Lieutenant Meriwether Lewis, " just from the Whiskey
Rebellion," he said. Between him and William Clark,
now Captain Clark, there sprang up the most intimate
friendship.
" The nature of the Insurrection? " remarked Lewis in
his camp talks with Clark. " Why, the Pennsylvania
mountaineers about Redstone-Old-Fort refused to pay
the whiskey tax, stripped, tarred, and feathered the col
lectors ! ' The people must be taught obedience/ said
General Washington, and, after all peaceable means failed,
he marched fifteen thousand militia into the district. The
thought that Washington was coming at the head of
troops made them reconsider. They sent deputations to
make terms about the time of Wayne's battle. We built
THE BROTHERS 113
log huts and forted for the winter on the Monongahela
about fifteen miles above Pittsburg."
" And so the Spaniards have come to terms? " queried
Lewis as Clark still remained silent.
" Yes, they have opened the river."
" I came near being in the midst of that," continued
Lewis. " Michaux came to Charlottesville. I was eigh
teen, just out of school and eager for adventure. Michaux
was to explore the West. Mr. Jefferson had a plan for
sending two people across the Rocky Mountains. I begged
to go, and probably should, had not Michaux been re
called when the new French minister came in."
" Rest assured," replied Clark solemnly, " no explora
tion of the West can ever be made while Spain holds
Louisiana."
XXVII
THE BROTHERS
" "% /f^ claim is as just as the book we swear by."
V/l The hero of the heroic age of the Middle
1. T A West was discussing his debts for the conquest
of Illinois. " I have given the United States half the ter
ritory they possess, and for them to suffer me to remain
in poverty in consequence of it will not redound to their
honour. I engaged in the Revolution with all the ar
dour that youth could possess. My zeal and ambition
rose with my success, determined to save those countries
which had been the seat of my toil, at the hazard of my
life and fortune.
" At the most gloomy period of the war when a ration
could not be purchased on public credit, I risked my own
credit, gave my bonds, mortgaged my lands for supplies,
paid strict attention to every department, flattered the
friendly and confused the hostile tribes of Indians, by
my emissaries baffled my internal enemies (the most dan
gerous of all to public interest), and carried my point.
n4 THE CONQUEST
" Thus at the end of the war I had the pleasure of see
ing my country secure, but with the loss of my manual
activity. Demands of very great amount were not paid,
others with depreciated paper. Now suits are commenced
against me, for those sums in specie. My military and
other lands, earned by my services, are appropriated for
the payment of these debts, and demands yet are remain
ing, to a considerable amount more than the remains of
a shattered fortune will pay.
" This is truly my situation. I see no other recourse
remaining but to make application to my country for
redress."
Brooding over his troubles, George Rogers Clark had
built himself a little cabin at the Point of Rock, over
looking the Falls of the Ohio, and gone into a self-chosen
St. Helena. The waves dashed and roared below and
the mist arose, as he looked out on Corn Island, scene of
his earliest exploit.
A library of handsome books was the principal orna
ment the house contained. Reading, hunting, fishing,
he passed his days, while the old negro servants attended
to the kitchen and the garden.
" I have come," answered his brother William, " I
have retired from the army, to devote myself to you.
Now what can be done?"
" Done? Look at these bills. Gratiot's is paid, thank
.God, or he would have been a ruined man. Monroe
helped him through with that. And Menard's? That
is shelved at Richmond for fifty years." General Clark
turned the leaves of his note-book.
"And Vigo? But for him I could never have sur
prised Vincennes. He was the best friend I had, and
the best still, except you, William."
A singular affection bound these two brothers. It
seemed almost as if William took up the life of George
Rogers where it was broken off, and carried it on to a
glorious conclusion.
" Virginia acknowledges Vigo's debt, certifies that it
has never been paid but she has ceded those lands to the
Government. Who then shall pay it but Congress ? The
THE BROTHERS 115
debt was necessary and lawful in contracting for supplies
for the conquest of Illinois. Could I have done with
less? God knows we went with parched corn only in
our wallets and depended on our rifles for the rest. Tell
him to keep the draft, Virginia will pay it, or Congress,
some time or other, with interest."
Again, at William's persuasion, the General came home
to Mulberry Hill. An expert horseman, everybody in
Louisville knew Captain Clark, who, wrapped in his
cloak, came spurring home night after night on his
blooded bay, with York at his side, darkness nor swol
len fords nor wildly beating storms stopping his journey
as he came bearing news to his brother.
" I have ridden for brother George in the course of
this year upwards of three thousand miles," wrote the
Captain to his brother Edmund, in December, 1797,
" continually in the saddle, attempting to save him, and
have been serviceable to him in several instances. I have
but a few days returned from Vincennes attending a suit
for twenty-four thousand dollars against him."
These long journeys included tours to St. Louis, Vin
cennes, Kaskaskia, among the General's old debtors, prov
ing that the articles for which he was sued were for his
troops, powder and military stores.
' The General is very ill again," said father Clark,
walking up and down the entry before the chamber door.
The old man's severe countenance always relaxed when
he spoke of " the General." Of all his children, George
Rogers was the one least expected to fall into dissipation,
but now in rheumatic distress, old before his time, George
Rogers sometimes drank.
" Cover him, shield him, let not the world witness my
brother's weakness," William would say at such times,
affectionately detaining him at Mulberry Hill.
Glancing into the dining-room, the white-haired cava
lier noticed Fanny and her children and others sitting
around the table. Preoccupied, the old man approached,
and leaning over a chair delivered an impressive grace.
" Now, my children, you can eat your dinner. Do not
wait for me," and again he took up his walk in the entry
ii6 THE CONQUEST
outside the chamber door. A smile wreathed the faces
of all; there was no dinner; they were simply visiting
near the table.
With children and grandchildren around him, the house
at Mulberry Hill was always full. At Christmas or
Thanksgiving, when Lucy came with her boys from Lo
cust Grove, " Well, my children," father Clark would
say, " if I thought we would live, mother and I, five
years longer, I would build a new house."
But the day before Christmas, 1798, the silky white
hair of Ann Rogers Clark was brushed back for the last
time, in the home that her taste had beautified with the
groves and flowers of Mulberry Hill.
More and more frequently the old cavalier retired to
his rustic arbour in the garden.
" I must hunt up father, he will take cold," William
would say ; and there on a moonlight night, on his knees
in prayer, the old man would be found, among the cedars
and honeysuckles of Mulberry Hill.
" Why do you dislike old John Clark," some one asked
of a neighbour when the venerable man lay on his death
bed.
"What? I dislike old John Clark? I revere and
venerate him. His piety and virtues may have been a
reproach, but I reverence and honour old John Clark."
By will the property was divided, and the home at
Mulberry Hill went to William.
" In case Jonathan comes to Kentucky he may be will
ing to buy the place," said William. " If he does I shall
take the cash to pay off these creditors of yours."
" Will you do that? " exclaimed George Rogers Clark
gratefully. " I can make it good to you when these lands
of mine come into value."
" Never mind that, brother, never mind that. The
honour of the family demands it. And those poor
Frenchmen are ruined."
" Indians are at the Falls ! "
Startled, even now the citizens of Louisville were ready
to fly out with shotguns in memory of old animosities.
Nothing chills the kindlier impulses like an Indian war.
THE BROTHERS 117
Children age, young men frost and wrinkle, women turn
into maniacs. Every log hut had its bedridden invalid
victim of successive frights and nervous prostration.
Only the stout and sturdy few survived in after days to
tell of those fierce times when George Rogers Clark was
the hope and safety of the border. To these, the Indian
was a serpent in the path, a panther to be hunted.
" Hist ! go slow. 'T is the Delaware chiefs come down
to visit George Rogers Clark," said Simon Kenton.
In these days of peace, remembering still their old
terror of the Long Knife, a deputation of chiefs had
come to visit Clark. In paint and blankets, with lank
locks flapping in the breeze, they strode up the catalpa
avenue, sniffing the odours of Mulberry Hill. General
Clark looked from the window. Buckongahelas led the
train, with Pierre Drouillard, the interpreter.
Drouillard had become, for a time, a resident of Ken
tucky. Simon Kenton, hearing that the preserver of his
life had fallen into misfortune since the surrender of De
troit, sent for him, gave him a piece of his farm, and
built him a cabin. George Drouillard, a son, named for
George III., was becoming a famous hunter on the
Mississippi.
" We have come," said Buckongahelas, " to touch the
Long Knife."
Before Clark realised what they were doing, the In
dians had snipped off the tail of his blue military coat
with their hunting knives.
" This talisman will make us great warriors," said
Buckongahelas, carefully depositing a fragment in his
bosom.
Clark laughed, but from that time the Delaware King
and his braves were frequent visitors to the Long Knife,
who longed to live in the past, forgetting misfortune.
But George Rogers Clark was not alone in financial
disaster. St. Clair had expended a fortune in the cause
of his country and at last, accompanied by his devoted
daughter, retired to an old age of penury.
Boone, too, had his troubles. Never having satisfied
the requirements of law concerning his claim, he was
ii8 THE CONQUEST
left landless in the Kentucky he had pioneered for civili
sation. Late one November day in 1798 he was seen
wending his way through the streets of Cincinnati, with
Rebecca and all his worldly possessions mounted on
packhorses.
" Where are you going?" queried an old-time ac
quaintance.
" Too much crowded, too many people. I am going
west where there is more elbow room."
" Ze celebrated Colonel Boone ees come to live een
Louisiana," said the Spanish officers of St. Louis. The
Stars and Stripes and the yellow flag of Spain were hung
out side by side, and the garrison came down out of the
stone fort on the hill to parade in honour of Daniel
Boone.
No such attentions had ever been paid to Daniel Boone
at home. He dined with the Governor at Government
House and was presented with a thousand arpents of
land, to be located wherever he pleased, " in the district
of the Femme Osage."
Beside a spring on a creek flowing into the Missouri
Boone built his pioneer cabin, beyond the farthest border
settlement.
" Bring a hundred more American families and we
will give you ten thousand arpents of land," said the
Governor.
Back to his old Kentucky stamping ground went
Boone, and successfully piloted out a settlement of neigh
bours and comrades. Directly, Colonel Daniel Boone was
made Commandant of the Femme Osage District. His
word -became law in the settlement, and here he held his
court under a spreading elm that stands to-day, the Judg
ment Tree of Daniel Boone.
THE MAID OF FINCASTLE 119
XXVIII
THE MAID OF FINCASTLE
IN the autumn days as the century was closing, William
Clark set out for Virginia, as his brother had done in
other years. Kentucky was filled with old forts, neg
lected bastions, moats, and blockhouses, their origin for
gotten. Already the builders had passed on westward.
The Boone trace was lined now with settlements, a
beaten bridle-path thronged with emigrant trains kicking
up the dust. Through the frowning portals of Cumber
land Gap, Captain Clark and his man York galloped into
Virginia.
From the southern border of Virginia to the Potomac
passes the old highway, between the Alleghanies and the
Blue Ridge. Cantering thoughtfully along under the
broad-leaved locusts and laurels, a melody like the laugh
of wood-nymphs rippled from the forest.
" Why don't he go ? " cried a musical feminine voice.
" Oh, Harriet, Harriet!" With more laughter came a
rustling of green leaves. Parting the forest curtain to
discover the source of this unusual commotion, Captain
Clark descried two girls seated on a small pony, switching
with all their slender energy.
" His feet are set. He will not move, Judy."
Leaping at once from his saddle, the Captain bowed
low to the maidens in distress. " Can I be of any
assistance? "
The sudden apparition of a handsome soldier in tri-
cornered hat and long silk hose quite took their breath
away.
' Thank you, sir knight," answered the blonde with a
flush of bewitching colour. " Firefly, my pony, seems to
object to carrying two, but we cannot walk across that
ford. My cousin and I have on our satin slippers."
The Captain laughed, and taking the horse's bridle
120 THE CONQUEST
easily led them beyond the mountain rill that dashed
across their pathway.
" And will you not come to my father's house?" in
quired the maiden. " It is here among the trees."
Clark looked, — the roof and gables of a comfortable
Virginian mansion shone amid the greenery. " I fear
not. I must reach Colonel Hancock's to-night."
" This is Colonel Hancock's," the girls replied with a
smothered laugh.
At a signal, York lifted the five-barred gate and all
passed in to the long green avenue.
" The brother of my old friend, General George Rogers
Clark ! " exclaimed Colonel Hancock. " Glad to see you,
glad to see you. Many a time has he stopped on this
road."
The Hancocks were among the founders of Virginia.
With John Smith the first one came over " in search of
Forrest for his building of Ships," and was " massacred
by ye salvages at Thorp's House, Berkeley Hundred."
General Hancock, the father of the present Colonel,
equipped a regiment for his son at the breaking out of the
Revolution. On Pulaski's staff, the young Colonel re
ceived the body of the illustrious Pole as he fell at the
siege of Savannah.
From his Sea Island plantations and the sound of war
in South Carolina, General Hancock, old and in gout, set
out for Virginia. But Pulaski had fallen and his son was
a prisoner under Cornwallis. Attended only by his
daughter Mary and a faithful slave, the General died on
the way and was buried by Uncle Primus on the top of
King's Mountain some weeks before the famous battle.
Released on parole and finding his fortune depleted,
Colonel George Hancock read Blackstone and the Vir
ginia laws, took out a license, married, and settled at Fin-
castle. Here his children were born, of whom Judy was
the youngest daughter. Later, by the death of that heroic
sister Mary, a niece had come into the family, Harriet
Kennerly. These were the girls that Captain Clark had
encountered in his morning ride among the mountains of
Fincastle.
THE MAID OF FINCASTLE 121
" Your brother, the General, and I journeyed together
to Philadelphia, when he was Commissioner of Indian
affairs. Is he well and enjoying the fruits of his valour?"
continued the Colonel.
" My brother is disabled, the result of exposure in his
campaigns. He will never recover. I am now visiting
Virginia in behalf of his accounts with the Assembly, —
they have never been adjusted. He even thought you, his
old friend, might be able to lend assistance, either in
Virginia or in Congress."
" I am honoured by the request. You may depend upon
me."
Colonel George Hancock had been a member of the
Fourth Congress in Washington's administration, and
with a four-horse family coach travelled to and from
Philadelphia attending the sessions.
Here the little Judy's earliest recollections had been
of the beautiful Dolly Todd who was about to wed Mr.
Madison. Jefferson was Secretary of State then, and his
daughters, Maria and Martha, came often to visit Judy's
older sisters, Mary and Caroline.
Judy's hair was a fluff of gold then ; shading to brown,
it was a fluff of gold still, that Granny Molly found hard
to keep within bounds. Harriet, her cousin, of dark and
splendid beauty, a year or two older, was ever the insepar
able companion of Judy Hancock.
" Just fixing up the place again," explained Colonel
Hancock. " It has suffered from my absence at Phila
delphia. A tedious journey, a tedious journey from
Fincastle."
But to the children that journey had been a liberal
education. The long bell-trains of packhorses, the rum
bling Conestogas, the bateaux and barges, the great rivers
and dense forests, the lofty mountains and wide farm
lands, the towns and villages, Philadelphia itself, were
indelibly fixed in their memory and their fancy.
Several times in the course of the next few years, Wil
liam Clark had occasion to visit Virginia in behalf of his
brother, and each time more and more he noted the bud
ding graces of the maids of Fincastle.
122 THE CONQUEST
XXIX
THE PRESIDENTS SECRETARY
THE funeral bells of Washington tolled in 1800.
President Washington was dead. Napoleon was
first Consul of France. The old social systems
of Europe were tottering. The new social system of
America was building. The experiment of self-govern
ment had triumphed, and out of the storm-tossed seas
still grandly rode the Constitution. Out of the birth of
parties and political excitement, Thomas Jefferson came
to the Presidency.
The stately mansion of Monticello was ablaze with
light. Candles lit up every window. Not only Monti-
cello, but all Charlottesville was illuminated, with torches,
bonfires, tar-barrels. Friends gathered with congratula
tions and greeting.
As Washington had turned with regret from the banks
of the Potomac to fill the first presidency, and as Patrick
Henry, the gifted, chafed in Congressional halls, so now
Jefferson with equal regret left the shades of Monticello.
" No pageant shall give the lie to my democratic prin
ciples," he said, as in plain citizen clothes with a few of
his friends he repaired to the Capital and took the oath
of office. And by his side, with luminous eyes and pow
dered hair, sat Aaron Burr, the Vice-President.
Jefferson, in the simplicity of his past, had penned
everything for himself. Now he began to feel the need
of a secretary. There were many applicants, but the
President's eye turned toward the lad who nine years
before had begged to go with Michaux to the West.
" The appointment to the Presidency of the United
States has rendered it necessary for me to have a pri
vate secretary," he wrote to Meri wether Lewis. " Your
knowledge of the western country, of the army and of
all its interests, has rendered it desirable that you should
THE PRESIDENT'S SECRETARY 123
be engaged in that office. In point of profit it. has little
to offer, the salary being only five hundred dollars, but
it would make you know and be known to characters of
influence in the affairs of our country."
Meriwether was down on the Ohio. In two weeks
his reply came back from Pittsburg. " I most cordially
acquiesce, and with pleasure accept the office, nor were
further motives necessary to induce my compliance than
that you, sir, should conceive that in the discharge of the
duties, I could be serviceable to my country as well as
useful to yourself."
As soon as he could wind up his affairs, Captain Lewis,
one of the handsomest men in the army, appeared in
queue and cocked hat, silk stockings and knee buckles,
at the President's house in wide and windy Washington
to take up his duties as private secretary.
From his earliest recollection, Meriwether Lewis had
known Thomas Jefferson, as Governor in the days of
Tarleton's raid, and as a private farmer and neighbour
at Monticello. After Meriwether's mother married Cap
tain Marks and moved to Georgia, Jefferson went to
France, and his uncle, Colonel Nicholas Lewis, looked
after the finances of the great estate at Monticello.
Under the guardianship of that uncle, Meriwether at
tended the school of Parson Maury, the same school
where Jefferson had been fitted for college.
He remembered, too, that day when Jefferson came
back from France and all the slaves at Monticello rushed
out and drew the carriage up by hand, crowding around,
kissing his hands and feet, blubbering, laughing, crying.
How the slaves fell back to admire the young ladies that
had left as mere children! Martha, a stately girl of
seventeen, and little Maria, in her eleventh year, a daz
zling vision of beauty. Ahead of everybody ran the gay
and sunny Jack Eppes to escort his little sweetheart.
Both daughters were married now, and with families
of their own, so more than ever Jefferson depended on
Meriwether Lewis. They occupied the same chamber
and lived in a degree of intimacy that perhaps has sub
sisted between no other president and his private secretary.
124 THE CONQUEST
With his favourite Chickasaw horses, Arcturus and
Wildair, the President rode two hours every day, Meri-
wether often with him, directing the workmen on the new
Capitol, unfinished still amid stone and masonry tools.
Washington himself chose the site, within an amphi
theatre of hills overlooking the lordly Potomac where he
camped as a youth on Braddock's expedition. Washing
ton, Jefferson, Madison, riding ever to and from Mount
Vernon, Monticello, and Montpelier, discussed the plans
and set the architects to work. Now it fell to Jefferson
to carry on what Washington had so well begun.
Thomas Jefferson was a social man, and loved a throng
about him. The vast and vacant halls of the White
House would have been dreary but for the retinue of
guests. Eleven servants had been brought from Monti-
cello, and half-a-dozen from Paris, — Petit, the butler,
M. Julien, the cook, a French chef, Noel, the kitchen
boy, and Joseph Rapin, the steward. Every morning
Rapin went to the Georgetown market, and Meriwether
Lewis gave him his orders.
" For I need you, Meriwether, not only for the public,
but as well for the private concerns of the household,"
said the President affectionately. " And I depend on
you to assist in entertaining."
" At the head of the table, please," said the President,
handing in Mrs. Madison. " I shall have to request you
to act as mistress of the White House."
In his own youth Jefferson had cherished an affection
for Dolly Madison's mother, the beautiful Mary Coles,
so it became not difficult to place her daughter in the seat
of honour.
There were old-style Virginia dinners, with the art of
Paris, for ever after his foreign experience Jefferson in
sisted on training his own servants in the French fashion.
At four they dined, and sat and talked till night, Con
gressmen, foreigners, and all sorts of people, with the
ever-present cabinet.
James Madison, Secretary of State, was a small man,
easy, dignified, and fond of conversation, with pale stu
dent face like a young theologian just out of the cloister.
THE PRESIDENT'S SECRETARY 125
Dolly herself powdered his hair, tied up his queue, and
fastened his stock ; very likely, too, prescribed his elegant
knee breeches and buckles and black silk stockings, swans'
down buff vest, long coat, and lace ruffles. " A very tasty
old-school gentleman," said the guests of the White
House.
Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, born and
bred a scholar, was younger than either Madison or Jef
ferson, well read, with a slightly Genevan accent, and a
prominent nose that marked him a man of affairs.
But everything revolved about Jefferson, in the vil
lage of Washington and in the country at large. Next to
General Washington he filled the largest space in public
esteem.
Slim, tall, and bony, in blue coat faced with yellow,
green velveteen breeches, red plush waist-coat and elabo
rate shirt frill, long stockings and slippers with silver
buckles, — just so had he been ever since his Parisian
days, picturesquely brilliant in dress and speech, talking,
talking, ever genially at the White House.
Before the " Mayflower " brought the first Puritans to
New England the Jeffersons had settled in Virginia. The
President's mother was a Randolph of patrician blood.
A hundred servants attended in Isham Randolph's, her
father's house. Peter Jefferson, his father, was a
democrat of democrats, a man of the people. Perhaps
Thomas had felt the sting of Randolph pride that a
daughter had married a homely rawboned Jefferson, but
all the man in him rose up for that Jefferson from whom
he was sprung. Thomas Jefferson, the son, was just
such a thin homely rawboned youth as his father had
been. Middle age brought him good looks, old age made
him venerable, an object of adoration to a people.
Always up before sunrise, he routed out Meriwether.
There were messages to send, or letters to write, or orders
for Rapin before the round disk of day reddened the
Potomac.
No woman ever brushed his gray neglected hair tied
so loosely in a club behind; it was Jeffersonian to have
it neglected and tumbled all over his head. Everybody
126 THE CONQUEST
went to the White House for instruction, entertainment;
and Jefferson — was Jefferson.
Of course he had his enemies, even there. Twice a
month Colonel Burr, the Vice-President, the great anti-
Virginian, dined at the White House. Attractive in per
son, distinguished in manner, all looked upon Colonel
Burr as next in the line of Presidential succession. He
came riding back and forth between Washington and
his New York residence at Richmond Hill, and with him
the lovely Theodosia, the intimate friend of Dolly Madi
son and Mrs. Gallatin.
Lewis understood some of the bitter and deadly politi
cal controversies that were smothered now under the ever
genial conversation of the President, for Jefferson, the
great apostle of popular sovereignty, could no more con
ceal his principles than he could conceal his personality.
Everything he discussed, — science, politics, philosophy,
art, music. None there were more widely read, none
more travelled than the President.
But he dearly loved politics. Greater, perhaps, was
Jefferson in theory than in execution. His eye would
light with genius, as he propounded his views.
" Science, did you say? The main object of all science
is the freedom and happiness of man, and these are the
sole objects of all legitimate government. Why, Wash
ington himself hardly believed that so liberal a govern
ment as this could succeed, but he was resolved to give
the experiment a trial. And now, our people are throw
ing aside the monarchical and taking up the republican
form, with as much ease as would have attended their
throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes.
I am persuaded that no Constitution was ever before so
well calculated as ours for extensive empire."
To Jefferson it had fallen to overthrow church estab
lishment and entail and primogeniture in Virginia, in
novations that were followed by all the rest of the States.
" At least," pleaded an opponent, " if the eldest may no
longer inherit all the lands and all the slaves of his father,
let him take a double share."
" No," said Jefferson, " not until he can eat a double
THE PRESIDENT'S SECRETARY 127
allowance of food and do a double allowance of work.
Instead of an aristocracy of wealth, I would make an
opening for an aristocracy of virtue and talent."
" But see to what Mr. Jefferson and his levelling
system has brought us," cried even John Randolph of
Roanoke, as one after another of the estates of thou
sands of acres slid into the hands of the people.
He prohibited the importation of slaves, and, if he
could have done it, would have abolished slavery itself
before it became the despair of a people.
" Franklin a great orator? Why, no, he never spoke
in Congress more than five minutes at a time, and then
he related some anecdote which applied to the subject
before the House. I have heard all the celebrated ora
tors of the National Assembly of France, but there was
not one equal to Patrick Henry."
And then, confidentially, sometimes he told a tale of
the Declaration of Independence. " I shall never cease
to be grateful to John Adams, the colossus of that de
bate. While the discussion was going on, fatherly old
Ben Franklin, seventy years old, leaning on his cane,
sat by my side, and comforted me with his jokes when
ever the criticisms were unusually bitter. The Congress
held its meetings near a livery stable. The members wore
short breeches and thin silk stockings, and with hand
kerchief in hand they were diligently employed in lash
ing the flies from their legs. So very vexatious was the
annoyance, and to so great impatience did it arouse the
sufferers, that they were only too glad to sign the Declara
tion and fly from the scene."
Two visits every year Jefferson made to his little prin
cipality of two hundred inhabitants at Monticello, a short
one early in the Spring and a longer one in the latter part
of Summer, when he always took his daughter Martha
and family from Edge Hill with him, for it would not
seem home without Martha to superintend.
Here Jefferson had organised his slaves into a great
industrial school, had his own carpenters, cabinet-makers,
shoe-makers, tailors, weavers, had a nail forge and made
nails for his own and neighbouring estates, — his black
128 THE CONQUEST
mechanics were the best in Virginia. Even the family
coach was made at Monticello, and the painting and the
masonry of the mansion were all executed by slaves on
the place.
On the Rivanna Jefferson had a mill, where his wheat
was manufactured into flour and sent down to Rich
mond on bateaux to be sold for a good price, and cotton
brought home to be made into cloth on the plantation.
No wonder, when the master was gone, so extensive an
industrial plant ceased to be remunerative.
Jefferson was always sending home shrubbery and
trees from Washington, — he knew every green thing
on every spot of his farm; and Bacon, the manager,
seldom failed to send the cart back laden with fruit from
Monticello for the White House.
While the President at Monticello was giving orders
to Goliah, the gardener, to Jupiter, the hostler, to Bacon
and all the head men of the shops, Lewis would gallop
home to visit his mother at Locust Hill just out of
Charlottesville.
Before the Revolution, Meri wether's father, William
Lewis, had received from George III. a patent for three
thousand acres of choice Ivy Creek land in Albemarle,
commanding an uninterrupted view of the Blue Ridge for
one hundred and fifty miles. Here Meriwether was born,
and Reuben and Jane.
" If Captain John Marks courts you I advise you to
marry him," said Colonel William Lewis to his wife, oh
his death-bed after the surrender of Cornwallis. In a
few years she did marry Captain Marks, and in Georgia
were born Meri wether's half brother and sister, John
and Mary Marks.
Another spot almost as dear to Meriwether Lewis was
the plantation of his uncle Nicholas Lewis, " The Farm,"
adjoining Monticello. It was here he saw Hamilton
borne by, a prisoner of war, on the way to Williams-
burg, and here it was that Tarleton made his raid and
stole the ducks from Aunt Molly's chicken yard.
A strict disciplinarian, rather severe in her methods,
and very industrious was Aunt Molly, " Captain Molly "
THE PRESIDENT'S SECRETARY 129
they called her. " Even Colonel ' Nick/ although he can
whip the British, stands in wholesome awe of Captain
Molly, his superior in the home guards," said the gos
siping neighbours of Charlottesville.
As a boy on this place, Meriwether visited the negro
cabins, followed the overseer, or darted on inquiry bent
through stables, coach-house, hen-house, smoke-house,
dove cote, and milk-room, the ever-attending lesser satel
lites of every mansion-house of old Virginia.
" Bless your heart, my boy," was Aunt Molly's habitual
greeting, " to be a good boy is the surest way to be a
great man."
A tender heart had Aunt Molly, doctress of half the
countryside, who came to her for remedies and advice.
Her home was ever open to charity. As friends she
nursed and cared for Burgoyne's men, the Saratoga
prisoners.
" Bury me under the tulip tree on top of the hill over
looking the Rivanna," begged one of the sick British
officers. True to her word, Aunt Molly had him laid
under the tulip tree. Many generations of Lewises and
Meriwethers lie now on that hill overlooking the red
Rivanna, but the first grave ever made there was that of
the British prisoner so kindly cared for by Meriwether
Lewis's Aunt Molly.
" Meriwether and Lewis are old and honoured names
in Virginia. I really believe the boy will be a credit to
the family," said Aunt Molly when the President's secre
tary reined up on Wildair at the gate. The Captain's
light hair rippled into a graceful queue tied with a ribbon,
and his laughing blue eyes flashed as Maria Wood ran
out to greet her old playfellow. Aunt Molly was Maria's
grandmother.
" Very grand is my cousin Meriwether now," began
the mischievous Maria. " Long past are those days
when as a Virginia ranger he prided himself on rifle
shirts faced with fringe, wild-cat's paws for epaulettes,
and leathern belts heavy as a horse's surcingle." Lift
ing her hands in mock admiration Maria smiled en-
trancingly, " Indeed, gay as Jefferson himself is our
9
1 30 THE CONQUEST
sublime dandy, in blue coat, red velvet waistcoat, buff
knee breeches, and brilliant buckles ! " and Meri wether
answered with a kiss.
Maria Wood was, perhaps, the dearest of Meriwether' s
friends, although rumour said he had been engaged
to Milly Maury, the daughter of the learned Parson.
But how could that be when Milly married while
Meriwether was away soldiering on the Ohio? At
any rate, now he rode with Maria Wood, danced
with her, and took her out to see his mother at Locust
Hill.
The whole family relied on Meriwether at Locust Hill.
While only a boy he took charge of the farm, and of his
own motion built a carriage and drove to Georgia after
his mother and the children upon the death of Captain
Marks.
Back through the Cherokee-haunted woods they came,
with other travellers journeying the Georgia route. One
night campfires were blazing for the evening meal, when
" Whoop ! " came the hostile message and a discharge
of arms.
" Indians ! Indians ! "
All was confusion. Paralysed mothers hugged their
infants and children screamed, when a boy in the crowd
threw a bucket of water on the fire extinguishing the
light. In a moment all was still, as the men rushed to
arms repelling the attack. That boy was Meriwether
Lewis.
" No brother like mine," said little Mary Marks.
" Every noble trait is his, — he is a father to us chil
dren, a counsellor to our mother, and more anxious about
our education than even for his own ! "
Charles de St. Memin, a French artist, was in Wash
ington, engraving on copper.
" May I have your portrait as a typical handsome
American?" he said to the President's secretary.
Meriwether laughed and gave him a sitting. The same
hand that had so lately limned Paul Revere, Theodosia
Burr, and the last profile of Washington himself, sketched
the typical youth of 1801. Lewis sent the drawing to his
PRESIDENT TALKS WITH MERI WETHER 131
mother, the head done in fired chalk and crayon, with that
curious pink background so peculiar to the St. Memin
pictures.
XXX
THE PRESIDENT TALKS WITH MERIWETHER
HOURS by themselves Jefferson sat talking to
Lewis. With face sunny, lit with enthusiasm, he
spoke rapidly, even brilliantly, a dreamer, a seer,
a prophet, believing in the future of America.
" I have never given it up, Meriwether. Before the
peace treaty was signed, after the Revolution, I was
scheming for a western exploration. We discussed it at
Annapolis; I even went so far as to write to George
Rogers Clark on the subject. Then Congress sent me to
France.
" In France a frequent guest at my table was John
Ledyard, of Connecticut. He had accompanied Captain
Cook on his voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and now panted
for some new enterprise. He had endeavoured to engage
the merchants of Boston in the Northwest fur trade, but
the times were too unsettled. ' Why, Mr. Jefferson/ he
was wont to say, ' that northwest land belongs to us. I
felt I breathed the air of home the day we touched at
Nootka Sound. The very Indians are just like ours. And
furs, — that coast is rich in beaver, bear, and otter. De
pend upon it,' he used to say, ' untold fortunes lie un
touched at the back of the United States.' '
" I then proposed to him to go by land to Kamtchatka,
cross in some Russian vessel to Nootka Sound, fall down
into the latitude of the Missouri, and penetrate to and
through that to the United States. Ledyard eagerly
seized the idea. I obtained him a permit from the Empress
Catherine, and he set out ; went to St. Petersburg, crossed
the Russian possessions to within two hundred miles of
Kamtchatka. Here he was arrested by order of the Em
press, who by this time had changed her mind, and for-
I32 THE CONQUEST
bidden his proceeding. He was put in a close carriage,
and conveyed day and night, without ever stopping, till
they reached Poland ; where he was set down and left to
himself. The fatigue of this journey broke down his
constitution, and when he returned to me at Paris his
bodily strength was much impaired. His mind, however,
remained firm and he set out for Egypt to find the sources
of the Nile, but died suddenly at Cairo. Thus failed the
first attempt to explore the western part of our northern
continent.
" Imagine my interest, later, to learn that after reading
of Captain Cook's voyages the Boston merchants had
taken up Ledyard's idea and in 1787 sent two little ships,
the * Columbia Rediviva ' and the * Lady Washington '
into the Pacific Ocean.
" Barely was I back and seated in Washington's cabinet
as Secretary of State, before those Boston merchants
begged my intercession with the Court of Spain, for one
Don Bias Gonzalez, Governor of Juan Fernandez. Pass
ing near that island, one of the ships was damaged by a
storm, her rudder broken, her masts disabled, and herself
separated from her companion. She put into the island
to refit, and at the same time to wood and water. Don
Bias Gonzalez, after examining her, and finding she had
nothing on board but provisions and charts, and that her
distress was real, permitted her to stay a few days, to refit
and take in fresh supplies of wood and water. For this
act of common hospitality, he was immediately deprived
of his government, unheard, by superior order, and placed
under disgrace. Nor was I ever able to obtain a hearing
at the Court of Spain, and the reinstatement of this be
nevolent Governor.
"The little ships went on, however, and on May n,
1792, Captain Robert Gray, a tar of the Revolution, dis
covered the great river of the west and named it for his
gallant ship, the ' Columbia.'
" In that very year, 1792, not yet having news of this
discovery, I proposed to the American Philosophical So
ciety that we should set on foot a subscription to engage
some competent person to explore that region, by ascend-
PRESIDENT TALKS WITH MERI WETHER 133
ing the Missouri and crossing the Stony Mountains, and
descending the nearest river to the Pacific. The sum of
five thousand dollars was raised for that purpose, and
Andre Michaux, a French botanist, was engaged as scien
tist, but when about to start he was sent by the French
minister on political business to Kentucky."
Meriwether Lewis laughed. "I remember. I was then
at Charlottesville on the recruiting service, and warmly
solicited you to obtain for me the appointment to execute
that adventure. But Mr. Andre Michaux offering his
services, they were accepted."
Both were silent for a time. Michaux had gone on
his journey as far as Kentucky, become the confidential
agent between Genet and George Rogers Clark for the
French expedition, and been recalled by request of
Washington.
" Meriwether," continued the President, " I see now
some chance of accomplishing that northwest expedition.
The act establishing trading posts among the Indians is
about to expire. My plan is to induce the Indians to aban
don hunting and become agriculturists. As this may de
prive our traders of a source of profit, I would direct
their attention to the fur trade of the Missouri. In a few
weeks I shall make a confidential communication to Con
gress requesting an appropriation for the exploration of
the northwest. We shall undertake it as a literary and
commercial pursuit."
"And, sir, may I lead that exploration?"
" You certainly shall," answered the President. " How
much money do you think it would take? "
Secretary Lewis spent the next few days in making an
estimate.
" Mathematical instruments, arms and accoutrements,
camp equipage, medicine and packing, means for trans
portation, Indian presents, provisions, pay for hunters,
guides, interpreters, and contingencies, — twenty-five
hundred dollars will cover it all, I think."
Then followed that secret message of January 18, 1803,
dictated by Jefferson, penned by Lewis, in which the Pres
ident requested an appropriation of twenty-five hundred
I34 THE CONQUEST
dollars, " for the purpose of extending the external com
merce of the United States."
Congress granted the request, and busy days of prep
aration followed.
The cabinet were in the secret, and the ladies, partic
ularly Mrs. Madison and Mrs. Gallatin, were most inter
ested and sympathetic, providing everything that could
possibly be needed in such a perilous journey, fearing that
Lewis might never return from that distant land of sav
ages. The President's daughters, Mrs. Randolph and
Mrs. Eppes, were there, handsome, accomplished, delicate
women, who rode about in silk pelisses purchasing at the
shops the necessaries for " housewives," pins, needles,
darning yarn, and the thousand and one little items that
women always give to soldier boys.
Dolly Madison, in mulberry-coloured satin, a tulle ker
chief on her neck and dainty cap on her head, stitched,
stitched; and in the streets, almost impassable for mud,
she and Martha, the President's daughter, were often mis
taken for each other as they went to and fro guided by
Dolly's cousin, Edward Coles, a youth destined to win
renown himself one day, as the " anti-slavery governor "
of Illinois.
In his green knee pants and red waistcoat, long stock
ings and slippers, the genial President looked in on the
busy ladies at the White House, but his anxiety was on
matters of far more moment than the stitchery of the
cabinet ladies.
Alexander Mackenzie's journal of his wonderful trans
continental journey in 1793 was just out, the book of the
day. It thrilled Lewis, — he devoured it.
Before starting on his tour Alexander Mackenzie
went to London and studied mathematics and astronomy.
" It is my own dream," exclaimed Lewis, as the President
came upon him with the volumes in hand. " But the
scientific features, to take observations, to be sure of my
botany, to map longitude —
" That must come by study," said Jefferson. " I would
have you go to Philadelphia to prosecute your studies in
the sciences. I think you had better go at once to Dr.
Barton, — I will write to him to-day."
PRESIDENT TALKS WITH MERIWETHER 135
And again in the letter to Dr. Barton, Meri wether's
hand penned the prosecution of his fortune.
" I must ask the favour of you to prepare for him a note
of those lines of botany, zoology, or of Indian history
which you think most worthy of study or observation. He
will be with you in Philadelphia in two or three weeks and
will wait on you and receive thankfully on paper any com
munications you may make to him."
Jefferson had ever been a father to Meriwether Lewis,
had himself watched and taught him. And Lewis in his
soul revered the great man's learning, as never before
he regretted the wasted hours at Parson Maury's when
often he left his books to go hunting on Peter's Mount.
But proudly lifting his head from these meditations :
" I am a born woodsman, Mr. Jefferson. You know
that."
" Know it ! " Jefferson laughed. " Does not the fame
of your youthful achievements linger yet around the
woods of Monticello ? I have not forgotten, Meriwether,
that when you were not more than eight years old you
were accustomed to go out into the forest at night alone
in the depth of winter with your dogs and gun to hunt the
raccoon and opossum. Nor have I forgotten when the
Cherokees attacked your camp in Georgia." The young
man flushed.
" Your mother has often told it. It was when you
were bringing them home to Albemarle. How old were
you then? About eighteen? The Indians whooped and
you put out the fire, the only cool head among them. A
boy that could do that can as a man lead a great explora
tion like this.
" Nor need you fret about your lack of science, — the
very study of Latin you did with Parson Maury fits you
to prepare for me those Indian vocabularies. I am for
tunate to have one so trained. Latin gives an insight into
the structure of all languages. For years, now, I have
been collecting and studying the Indian tongues. Fortune
now permits you to become my most valued coadjutor."
And so Lewis noted in his book of memorandum, " Vo
cabularies of Indian languages."
136 THE CONQUEST
" You ought to have a companion, a military man like
George Rogers Clark. I have always wished to bring
him forward in Indian affairs ; no man better understands
the savage."
" But Clark has a brother/' quickly spoke Lewis, " a
brave fellow, absolutely unflinching in the face of danger.
If I could have my choice, Captain William Clark should
be my companion and the sharer of my command."
Two years Lewis had been Jefferson's private secretary,
when, appointed to this work, he went to Philadelphia to
study natural science and make astronomical observations
for the geography of the route. This youth, who had in
herited a fortune and every inducement to a life of ease,
now spent three months in severest toil, under the instruc
tion of able professors, learning scientific terms and cal
culating latitude and longitude.
Early in June he was back at Washington. Already
the President had secured letters of passport from the
British, French, and Spanish ministers, for this expedition
through foreign territory.
" The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri
River, and such principal streams of it, as, by its course
and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean,
whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado, or any other
river, may offer the most direct and practicable water-
communication across the continent, for the purpose of
commerce."
Far into the June night Jefferson discussed his instruc
tions, and signed the historic document.
" I have no doubt you will use every possible exertion
to get off, as the delay of a month now may lose a year in
the end."
Lewis felt the pressure; he was packing his instru
ments, writing to military posts for men to be ready when
he came down the river, and hurrying up orders at Har
per's Ferry, when a strange and startling event occurred,
beyond the vision of dreamers.
Book II
INTO THE WEST
Book II
INTO THE WEST
I
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE
, knowing she cannot hold Louisiana, has
it to France ! " The winds of ocean bore
message to America.
" Napoleon? Is he to control us also?"
Never so vast a shadow overawed the world. Afar
they had read of his battles, had dreaded his name. In
stantly colossal Napoleon loomed across the prairies of
the West.
Napoleon had fifty-four ships and fifty thousand
troops, the flower of his army, sailing to re-establish
slavery in Hayti. But a step and he would be at the
Mississippi. He was sending Laussat, a French prefect,
to take over New Orleans and wait for the army.
" Shall we submit? And is this to be the end of all our
fought-for liberty, that Napoleon should rule America ? "
The fear of France was now as great as had been the
admiration.
Gaily the flat-boats were floating down, laden with flour
and bacon, hams and tobacco, seeking egress to Cuba and
Atlantic seaports, when suddenly, in October, 1802, the
Spanish Intendant at New Orleans closed the Mississippi.
Crowding back, for twenty thousand miles inland, were
the products of the Autumn.
The western country blazed; only by strenuous effort
could Congress keep a backwoods army from marching
on New Orleans. A powerful minority at Washington
contended for instant seizure.
1 40 THE CONQUEST
Pittsburg, with shore lined with shipping, roared all
the way to the gulf, " No grain can be sold down the
river on account of those piratical Spaniards ! "
Appeal after appeal went up to Jefferson, " Let us
sweep them into the sea ! "
What hope with a foreign nation at our gates ? Spain
might be got rid of, but France — Monroe was dispatched
to France to interview Napoleon.
" The French must not have New Orleans," was the
lightning thought of Jefferson. " No one but ourselves
must own our own front door."
And Jefferson penned a letter to Livingstone, the
American minister at Paris :
" There is on the globe but one single spot, the possessor
of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New
Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our
territory must pass to market. France placing herself in
that door assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain
might have retained it quietly for years. Not so France.
The impetuosity of her temper, the energy and restlessness
of her character, render it impossible that France and the
United States can continue friends when they meet in so
irritating a position. The day that France takes possession
of New Orleans — from that moment we must marry our
selves to the British fleet and nation."
As Jefferson placed that letter in the hands of Monroe
he added :
" In Europe nothing but Europe is seen. But this
little event, of France's possessing herself of Louisiana,
— this speck which now appears an invisible point on
the horizon, — is the embryo of a tornado.
" I must secure the port of New Orleans and the mas
tery of the navigation of the Mississippi.
" We must have peace. The use of the Mississippi is
indispensable. We must purchase New Orleans."
" You are aware of the sensibility of our Western citi
zens," Madison was writing to Madrid. " To them the
Mississippi is everything. It is the Hudson, the Dela
ware, the Potomac, and all the navigable rivers of the
Atlantic States, formed into one."
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 141
But Napoleon's soldiers were dying at San Domingo,
the men with whom he would have colonised Louisiana.
At that moment the flint and steel of France and Eng
land struck, and the spark meant — war. England stood
ready to seize the mouth of the Mississippi.
After the solemnities of Easter Sunday at St. Cloud,
April 10, 1803, Napoleon summoned two of his
ministers.
" I know the full value of Louisiana ! " he began with
vehement passion, walking up and down the marble par
lour. " A few lines of treaty have restored it to me, and
I have scarcely recovered it when I must expect to lose
it. But if it escapes from me," the First Consul shook
his finger menacingly, " it shall one day cost dearer to
those who oblige me to strip myself of it, than to those
to whom I wish to deliver it. The English have succes
sively taken from France, Canada, Cape Breton, New
foundland, Nova Scotia, and the richest portions of
Asia. They shall not have the Mississippi which they
covet. They have twenty ships of war in the Gulf of
Mexico, they sail over those seas as sovereigns. The
conquest of Louisiana would be easy. I have not a mo
ment to lose in putting it out of their reach. I know
not whether they are not already there. I think of ced
ing it to the United States. They only ask one town
of me in Louisiana but I already consider the colony as
entirely lost, and it appears to me that in the hands of
this growing power it will be more useful to the policy
and even to the commerce of France, than if I should
attempt to keep it."
He turned to Barbe-Marbois, who had served as Secre
tary of the French Legation at Philadelphia during the
whole war of the American Revolution.
" We should not hesitate to make a sacrifice of that
which is about slipping from us," said Barbe-Marbois.
" War with England is inevitable ; shall we be able to
defend Louisiana? Can we restore fortifications that
are in ruins? If, Citizen Consul, you, who have by one
of the first acts of your government made sufficiently
apparent your intention of giving this country to France,
142 THE CONQUEST
now abandon the idea of keeping it, there is no person
that will not admit that you yield to necessity."
Far into the night they talked, so late that the minis
ters slept at St. Cloud.
At daybreak Napoleon summoned Barbe-Marbois.
" Read me the dispatches from London."
" Sire," returned the Secretary, looking over the
papers, " naval and military preparations of every kind
are making with extraordinary rapidity."
Napoleon leaped to his feet and strode again the marble
floor.
" Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season.
I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I
will cede, but the whole colony without reservation. I
know the price of what I abandon. I renounce it with
regret. To attempt to retain it would be folly. I direct
you to negotiate this affair with the United States. Do
not even await the arrival of Mr. Monroe; have an in
terview this very day with Mr. Livingstone; but I re
quire a great deal of money for this war, and I would
not like to commence it with new contributions. I want
fifty millions, and for less than that sum I will not treat.
To-morrow you shall have your full powers."
The minister waited.
" Mr. Monroe is on the point of arriving," continued
Napoleon. " Neither this minister, nor his colleague, is
prepared for a decision which goes infinitely beyond any
thing they are about to ask of us. Begin by making
them overtures, without any subterfuge. Acquaint me,
hour by hour, of your progress."
"What will you pay for all Louisiana?" bluntly
asked Barbe-Marbois that day of the astonished Living
stone.
"All Louisiana! New Orleans is all I ask for," an
swered Livingstone. So long had Talleyrand trifled and
deceived, the American found himself distrustful of these
French diplomatists.
" But I offer the province," said Barbe-Marbois.
Surprised, doubtful, Livingstone listened. " I have
not the necessary powers."
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 143
The next day Monroe arrived.
" There must be haste or the English will be at New
Orleans," said Barbe-Marbois. '*' How much will you
pay for the whole province ? "
" The English ? Fifteen millions," answered the
Americans.
" Incorporate Louisiana as soon as possible into your
Union," said Napoleon, " give to its inhabitants the same
rights, privileges, and immunities as to other citizens of
the United States.
" And let them know that we separate ourselves from
them with regret; let them retain for us sentiments of
affection ; and may their common origin, descent, lan
guage, and customs perpetuate the friendship."
The papers were drawn up and signed in French and
in English.
" We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of
our lives ! " exclaimed Livingstone, as he and Barbe-
Marbois and Monroe arose and shook hands across the
document.
" This accession of territory strengthens for ever the
power of the United States," said Napoleon, coming in
to look at the treaty. And as he affixed that signature,
" NAPOLEON," he smiled, — "I have just given to Eng
land a maritime rival, that sooner or later will humble
her pride."
And on that day the Mississippi was opened, to be
closed by a foreign power no more for ever.
But no sooner had Napoleon parted with Louisiana
than he began to repent. "Hasten," the ministers warned
Jefferson, " the slightest delay may lose us the country."
The word reached America.
"Jefferson — bought New Orleans? bought the Mis
sissippi? bought the entire boundless West?"
Men gasped, then cheered. Tumultuous excitement
swept the land. On July 3, 1803, an infant Republic
hugging the Atlantic, on July 4, a world power grasp
ing the Pacific!
" A bargain ! " cried the Republicans.
" Unconstitutional ! " answered the Federalists.
I44 THE CONQUEST
" The East will become depopulated."
" Fifteen millions ! Fifteen millions for that wilder
ness! Why, that would be tons of money! Waggon
loads of silver five miles long. We have not so much
coin in the whole country ! "
II
THE KNIGHT OF THE WHITE HOUSE
A
ND Meriwether Lewis was ready to start.
The night before the Fourth of July he wrote
his mother:
" The day after to-morrow I shall set out for the western
country. I had calculated on the pleasure of visiting you,
but circumstances have rendered it impossible. My absence
will probably be equal to fifteen or eighteen months. The
nature of this expedition is by no means dangerous. My
route will be altogether through tribes of Indians friendly
to the United States, therefore I consider the chances of life
just as much in my favour as I should conceive them were
I to remain at home. The charge of this expedition is hon
ourable to myself, as it is important to my country. For
its fatigues I feel myself perfectly prepared, nor do I doubt
my health and strength of constitution to bear me through
it. I go with the most perfect pre-conviction in my own
mind of returning safe, and hope therefore that you will
not suffer yourself to indulge any anxiety for my safety, —
I will write again on my arrival at Pittsburg. Adieu, and
believe me your affectionate son,
MERIWETHER LEWIS."
The Jefferson girls had returned to their homes. Dolly
Madison and Mrs. Gallatin supervised the needle depart
ment, having made " housewives " enough to fit out a
regiment. Joseph Rapin, the steward, helped Lewis pack
his belongings, Secretary Gallatin contributed a map of
Vancouver's sketch of the Columbia mouth, and Madison
rendered his parting benediction.
THE KNIGHT OF THE WHITE HOUSE 145
Out of the iron gate in the high rock wall in front of
the White House Meriwether went, — fit emblem of the
young Republic, slim and lithe, immaculate in new uni
form and three-cornered chapeau, his sunny thick-braided
queue falling over the high-collared coat, — to meet the
Potomac packet for Harper's Ferry. All around were
uncut forests, save the little clearing of Washington, and
up the umbrageous hills stretched an endless ocean of
tree-tops.
The wind blew up the Potomac, fluttering the Presi
dent's gray locks. " If a superior force should be arrayed
against your . passage, return, Meriwether," was the
anxious parting word. " To your own discretion must
be left the degree of danger you may risk."
But Meriwether had no fears.
" Should you reach the Pacific Ocean, — endeavour to
learn if there be any port within your reach frequented by
sea-vessels of any nation, and to send two of your trusted
people back by sea, with a copy of your notes. Should
you be of opinion that the return of your party by the way
they went will be dangerous, then ship the whole, and
return by way of Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope.
As you will be without money, clothes or provisions, I
give you this open letter of credit authorising you to draw
on the Executive of the United States or any of its officers
in any part of the world. Our consuls at Batavia in Java,
at the Isles of France and Bourbon, and at the Cape of
Good Hope will be able to supply you necessities by drafts
on us."
For where in the world the Missouri led, no man then
knew !
" I have sometimes thought of sending a ship around
to you," said Jefferson, " but the Spaniards would be
certain to gobble it, and we are in trouble enough with
them already over this Louisiana Purchase."
Too well Lewis knew the delicacy of the situation.
Spain was on fire over the treachery of Napoleon.
"France has no right to alienate Louisiana!" was the
cry from Madrid. But what could she do ? Nothing but
fume, delay, threaten, — Napoleon was mastef .
10
146 THE CONQUEST
" Under present circumstances/ ) continued the Presi
dent, " I consider futile all effort to get a ship to your
succour on those shores. Spain would be only too glad
to strike a blow. But there must be trade, there is trade,
— all through Adams's administration the Russians wrere
complaining of Yankee skippers on that northwest coast.
" Russia has aided us, I may call the Emperor my per
sonal friend." With pardonable pride the President
thought of the bust of Alexander over his study door at
Monticello. " Though Catherine did send poor Ledyard
back, Alexander has proved himself true, and in case any
Russian ship touches those shores you are safe, or English,
or American. This letter of credit will carry you through.
" And above all, express my philanthropic regard for
the Indians. Humanity enjoins us to teach them agricul
ture and the domestic arts."
And after Lewis was fairly started, the President sent
on as a great secret, " I have received word from Paris
that Mr. Broughton, one of the companions of Captain
Vancouver, went up Columbia River one hundred miles
in December, 1792. He stopped at a point he named
Vancouver. Here the river Columbia is still a quarter of
a mile wide. From this point Mt. Hood is seen twenty
leagues distant, which is probably a dependency of the
Stony Mountains. Accept my affectionate salutations."
On the Fourth of July the same hand that drew up the
Declaration of Independence had drawn for Meriwether
Lewis a Letter of Credit, authorising him to purchase
anything he needed on the credit of the United States in
any part of the world. Was Jefferson thinking of those
days when George Rogers Clark gave drafts on New
Orleans for the conquest of Illinois? This again was
another venture into a dark unwritten West.
The next day Lewis " shot all his guns " at Harper's
Ferry, examined extra locks, knives, tomahawks, accou
trements that had been manufactured at his special direc
tion. The waggoner from Philadelphia came jolting by
with Indian presents, astronomical apparatus, and tents
on the way to Pittsburg.
Pittsburg ? A cloud of smoke hung even then over the
THE KNIGHT OF THE WHITE HOUSE 147
embryotic city. Two thousand miles inland, it already
had a flourishing ship-yard. Several large vessels lay on
the stocks and builders were hammering day and night.
" The * Louisiana/ three hundred tons, is waiting for
the next rise of the river," said a strapping tar. " In May
a fleet of schooners went out to the Caribbees. You are
too late for this summer's freshet."
" Come, gentlemen, gentlemen all,
Ginral Sincleer shall remem-ber-ed be,
For he lost thirteen hundred me-en all
In the Western Tari-to-ree."
Captain Lewis took a second look at the singer, — it
was George Shannon standing on the dock.
"Why, Captain Lewis! Where are you going?"
George was an old friend of Meriwether's, and yet but
a lad of seventeen. His father, one of those " ragged
Continentals " that marched on Yorktown, had emigrated
to the far Ohio.
Jane Shannon was a typical pioneer mother. She spun,
wove, knit, made leggings of skins, and caps and mocca
sins, but through multitudinous duties found time to teach
her children. " To prepare them for college," she said,
" that is my dream. I 'd live on hoe-cake for ever to give
them a chance." Every one of her six boys inherited that
mother's spirit, every one attained distinction.
At fourteen George was sent to his mother's relatives
on the Monongahela to school. Here he met Lewis,
forted in that winter camp. The gallant Virginian cap
tured the boy's fancy, — he became his model, his ideal.
"And can you go?" asked Captain Lewis.
" Go ? I will accompany you to the end of the world,
Captain Lewis," answered George Shannon. ' There is
no time for mails, — I know I have my parent's consent.
And the pay, that will take me to college ! " Shannon
enlisted on the spot, and was Lewis's greatest comfort in
those trying days at Pittsburg.
The boat-builders were drunkards. " I spent most of
my time with the workmen," wrote Lewis to the Presi
dent, " but neither threats nor persuasion were sufficient
I48 THE CONQUEST
to procure the completion before the 3ist of August."
Loading the boat the instant it was done, they set out at
four o'clock in the morning, with John Collins of Mary
land, and George Gibson, Hugh McNeal, John Potts, and
Peter Wiser, of Pennsylvania, recruits that had been
ordered from Carlisle. Peter Wiser is believed to have
been a descendant of that famous Conrad Weiser who
gave his life to pacifying the Indian.
By this time the water was low. " On board my boat
opposite Marietta, Sept. 13," Lewis writes, — " horses or
oxen — I find the most efficient sailors in the present
state of navigation," dragging the bateaux over shallows
of drift and sandbars.
And yet that same Spring, when the water was high,
Marietta had sent out the schooners " Dorcas and Sally,"
and the " Mary Avery," one hundred and thirty tons,
with cheers and firing of cannon. When Lewis passed, a
three-mast brig of two hundred and fifty tons and a
smaller one of ninety tons were on the point of being
finished to launch the following Spring, with produce for
Philadelphia.
George Shannon was a handsome boy, already full
grown but with the beardless pink and white of youth.
His cap would not fit down over his curls, but lifted like
his own hopes. Nothing would start the boats at daylight
like his jolly, rollicking
" Blow, ye winds of morning,
Blow, blow, blow,"
rolling across the tints of sunrise. His cheeks glowed,
his blue eyes shone to meet the wishes of his captain.
Past the fairy isle of Blennerhassett with its stately
mansion half-hid behind avenues of Lombardy poplar and
tasteful shrubbery, Captain Lewis came on down to Fort
Washington, Cincinnati, where brigs had lately taken on
cargoes and sailed to the West Indies.
Bones ? Of course Lewis wanted to look at bones and
send some to the learned President. Dr. Goforth of Cin
cinnati was sinking a pit at the Big Bone Lick for remains
RECRUITING FOR OREGON 149
of the mammoth, and might not mammoths be stalking
abroad in all that great land of the West? Mystery,
mystery, — the very air was filled with mystery.
Ill
RECRUITING FOR OREGON
that I have accepted President Jefferson's
proposal to be associated with Captain Lewis
in this expedition, it \vill oblige me to accept
brother Jonathan's offer of ten thousand dollars cash for
Mulberry Hill," William Clark was saying at Louisville.
' That will help out brother George on his military debts,
satisfy his claimants, and save him from ruin."
At the time of sale the old home was occupied by
General Clark and William Clark, and their sister Fanny
and her children. The departure of William for the
Pacific broke up and dispersed the happy family.
The General went back to the Point of Rock, fifty feet
above the dashing Ohio. That water was the lowest
ever known now, men could walk across on the rocks.
Three or four locust trees shaded the cabin, now painted
white, and an orchard of peach and cherry blossomed
below. Negro Ben and his wife Venus, and Carson and
Cupid, lived back of the house and cultivated a few acres
of grain and garden.
All of Clark's old soldiers remained loyal and visited
the Point of Rock, and every year an encampment of
braves, Indian chiefs whom he had subdued, came for
advice and to partake of his hospitality.
Grand and lonely, prematurely aged at fifty-one when
he should have been in his prime. General Clark sat over
looking the Falls when Captain Lewis pulled his bateaux
into the Bear Grass.
Captain Clark and nine young men of Kentucky were
waiting for the boat, — William Bratton, a blacksmith,
1 50 THE CONQUEST
formerly of Virginia, and John Shields, gunsmith, the
Tubal Cain of the expedition, John Coalter, who had been
a ranger with Kenton, the famous Shields brothers, Reu
ben and James, William Warner and Joseph Whitehouse,
all experts with the rifle, Charles Floyd, son of that
Charles Floyd that rode with his brother from the death-
stroke of Big Foot, and Nathaniel Pryor, his cousin.
Twenty years had passed since that fatal April morn
ing when John Floyd was laid a corpse at the feet of Jane
Buchanan. That posthumous child, ushered so sadly into
the world, John Floyd the younger, now a handsome
youth, was eager to go with his cousins — but an unex
pected illness held him back — to become a member of
Congress and Governor of Virginia.
And York, of course York. Had he not from child
hood obeyed John Clark's command, " Look after your
young master " ? With highest elation York assisted in
the preparation, furbished up his gun, and prepared to
" slay dem buffaloes."
" An interpreter is my problem now," said Captain
Lewis, " a man familiar with Indians, trustworthy, and
skilled in tongues."
" I think my brother will know the man, — he has
had wide experience in that line," said William; and so
down to the Point of Rock the Captains betook them
selves to visit George Rogers Clark.
" Dignity sat still upon his countenance and the com
manding look of Washington," wrote a chronicler of that
day.
" An interpreter? " mused General Clark. Then turn
ing to his brother, " Do you remember Pierre Drouil-
lard, the Frenchman that saved Kenton ? He was a man
of tact and influence with the Indians, and, although he
wore the red coat, a man of humanity. He interpreted
for me at Fort Mclntosh and at the Great Miami. He
comes with Buckongahelas."
William Clark remembered.
" That old Frenchman has a son, George, chip of the
old block, brought up with the Indians and educated at
a mission. He is your man, — at St. Louis, I think."
RECRUITING FOR OREGON 151
" Always demand of the Indians what you want, Wil
liam, that is the secret. Never let them think you fear
them. Great things have been effected by a few men
well conducted. Who knows what fortune may do for
you ? " It was the self-same saying with which twenty-
four years before he had started to Vincennes. " Here
are letters to some of my old friends at St. Louis and
Kaskaskia," added the General.
All the negroes were out to weep over York, whom
they feared to see no more, — old York and Rose, Nancy
and Julia, Jane, Cupid and Harry, from the scattered
home at Mulberry Hill.
General Jonathan Clark and Major Croghan were
there, the richest men in Kentucky, and General Jona
than's daughters who stitched their samplers now at
Mulberry Hill; and Lucy, from Locust Grove, the
image of William, " with face almost too strong for a
woman," some said. All the city knew her, a miracle
of benevolence and duty, and by her side the little son,
George Croghan, destined to hand on the renown of his
fathers.
William Clark's last word was for Fanny, a widow
with children. " It is my desire that she should stay
with Lucy at Locust Grove until my return," said the
paternal brother, kissing her pale cheek.
" And I want Johnny with me at the Point of Rock,"
added the lonely General, who, if he loved any one, it
was little John O' Fallen, the son of his sister Fanny.
" Bring on your plunder ! "
The Kentuckians could be recognised by their call as
they helped the bateaux over the rapids and launched
them below. George Rogers Clark stood on the Point
of Rock, waving a last farewell, watching them down the
river.
While Captain Clark went on down the Ohio, and en
gaged a few men at Fort Massac, Captain Lewis fol
lowed the old Vincennes " trace " to Kaskaskia.
In that very September, Sergeant John Ordway, in
Russell Bissell's company, was writing home to New
Hampshire :
I52 THE CONQUEST
" Kaskaskia is a very old town of about two hundred
houses and ruins of many more. We lie on the hill in
sight of the town, and have built a garrison here. — If
Betty Crosby will wait for my return I may perhaps join
hands with her yet. We have a company of troops from
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, here."
Captain Lewis came up to the garrison. Out of twenty
volunteers only three possessed the requisite qualifica
tions. But Sergeant Ordway was one, Robert Frazer of
Vermont, another, and Thomas P. Howard, of Massa
chusetts, the third.
Oppressed and anxious in mind over the difficulty of
finding suitable men, Captain Lewis was one morning
riding along when into the high road there ran out a
short, strong, compact, broad-chested and heavy-limbed
man, lean, sprightly, and quick of motion, in the dress
of a soldier. His lively eye instantly caught that of Cap
tain Lewis. Perceiving that the soldier was evidently
bent on seeing him, Lewis checked his horse and paused.
With military salute the man began : " Me name is
Patrick Gass, sorr, and I want to go with you to the
Stony Mountings, but my Commander, sorr, here at the
barracks, will not consint. He siz, siz he, ' You are too
good a carpenter, Pat, and I need you here.' '
His build, his manner, and the fact that Pat was a
soldier and a carpenter, was enough. Men must be had,
and here was a droll one, the predestined wit of the
expedition.
" I knew you, sorr, when I saw your horse ferninst
the trees. I recognised a gintleman and an officer. I
saw you whin I met Gineral Washington at Carlisle out
with throops to suppriss the Whiskey Rebillion. I met
Gineral Washington that day, and I sid, siz I, ' Gineral,
I 'm a pathriot mesilf and I '11 niver risist me gover'm'nt,
but I love ould Bourbon too well to inlist agin the whis
key byes.' '
" And have you never served in the field?" roared
Lewis, almost impatient.
" Ah, yis ; whin Adams was Prisident, I threw down
me jackplane and inlisted under Gineral Alexander Ham-
RECRUITING FOR OREGON 153
ilton, but there was no war, so thin I inlisted under Major
Cass."
Patrick glanced back and saw his Captain. " Hist
ye! shoulder-sthraps are comin' ! "
Lewis laughed. " Go and get ready, Patrick ; I '11
settle with your Captain." And Patrick, bent on a new
" inlistment " and new adventures, hied him away to
pack his belongings. For days in dreams he was already
navigating the Missouri, already he saw the blue Pacific.
As he told the boys afterward, " And I, siz I to mesilf,
* Patrick, let us to the Pecific!' Me Captain objicted,
but I found out where Captain Lewis was sthopping and
sthole away and inlisted annyhow."
Captain Lewis had made no mistake. Patrick Gass,
cheerful, ever brave, was a typical frontiersman. His
had been a life of constant roving. Starting from Cham-
bersburg, Pennsylvania, when he was five years old, the
family crossed the Alleghanies on packhorses. On the
first horse was the mother, with the baby and all the
table furniture and cooking utensils; on another were
packed the provisions, the plough-irons and farming
utensils; the third was rigged with a packsaddle and
two large cradles of hickory withes. In the centre of
these sat little Pat on one side and his sister on the other,
well laced in with bed-clothes so that only their heads
stuck out.
Along the edges of precipices they went, — if a horse
stumbled he would have thrown them hundreds of feet
below. On these horses they forded mountain streams,
swollen with melting snows and spring rains. Daily
were hairbreadth escapes, the horses falling, or carried
down with the current and the family barely snatched
from drowning.
The journey was made in April when the nights were
cold and the mother could not sleep. There was so much
to do for the children. As the tireless father kept guard
under the glow of the campfire, little Patrick's unfailing
good-night was, " Hist, child ! the Injuns will come and
take you to Detroit! "
There were several of these moves in his childhood.
I54 THE CONQUEST
Here and there he caught glimpses of well-housed, well-
fed hirelings of the British army watching like eagles the
land of the patriot army. At last they turned up at what
is now Wellsburg in West Virginia. While yet a boy
Gass was apprenticed to a carpenter and worked on a
house for a man by the name of Buchanan, while around
him played " little Jimmy," the president-to-be. " Little
Jimmy was like his mother," said Gass.
In December Lewis and Clark dropped down before
the white-washed walls and gray stone parapets of the
old French town of St. Louis. With fierce consequential
air a Spanish soldier flourished his sword indicating the
place to land.
" We will spend the winter at Charette, the farthest
point of settlement." That was the town of Daniel
Boone.
But the Governor, Don Carlos De Hault De Lassus,
barred the way.
" By the general policy of my government I am obliged
to prevent strangers from passing through Spanish ter
ritory until I have received official notice of its transfer."
Nothing could be done but to go into winter camp
opposite the mouth of the Missouri, just outside of his
jurisdiction, and discipline the men, making ready for
an early spring start.
Beyond the big river was foreign land. Did the Span
iard still hope to stay?
IV
THE FEUD IS ENDED
HARK ! Is that the boom of distant cannon ? The
American troops are falling into line outside the
walls of New Orleans on this 2Oth day of Decem
ber, 1803. The tri-colour of France floats on the flagstaff ;
the sky shines irradiant, like the " suns of Napoleon."
THE FEUD IS ENDED 155
It is high noon ; another salute shakes the city. " Ho,
warder, lower the drawbridge!"
With chain-pulleys rattling down goes the bridge, never
to be lifted again. The fortress bell strikes its last peal
under the flag of France, or Spain. With thundering
tread American dragoons file under the portcullis of the
Tchoupitoulas gate, followed by cannoneers and infantry
in coonskin caps and leathern hunting shirts.
Curiously these sons of the forest look upon the old
world forts and donjons of masonry. The moat is filled-
with stagnant water. The ramparts of New Orleans are
filled with soldiers from Havre and Madrid. The win
dows and balconies are filled with beautiful women weep
ing, weeping to see the barbarians.
Laussat was looking for Napoleon's soldiers, not a
sale. Pale as death he hands over the keys. Slowly the
tri-coloured flag of France at the summit of the flagstaff
in the plaza descends. Slowly the star-spangled banner
uplifts ; half-way the two linger in one another's folds.
As the flags embrace, another boom, and answering
guns reply from ship and fort and battery around the
crescent of New Orleans. The flags are parting, — it is
a thrilling moment ; up, up, steadily mounts the emblem
of America and bursts on the breeze.
The band breaks into " Hail, Columbia," amid the roar
of artillery and shouting of backwoodsmen. The map of
France in the new world has become the map of the
United States.
" The flag! the flag! " Veterans of the French army
receive the descending tri-colour, and followed by a pro
cession of uncovered heads bear it with funereal tread to
Laussat.
" We have wished to give to France a last proof of the
affection which we will always retain for her," with
trembling lip speaks the flag-bearer. " Into your hands
we deposit this symbol of the tie which has again tran
siently connected us with her."
And Laussat with answering tears replies, " May the
prosperity of Louisiana be eternal."
But of all in New Orleans on this historic day, none
156 THE CONQUEST
fear, none tremble like Sister Infelice, in the cloister of
the Ursulines. She seems to hear the very sabres beat on
the convent wall. When a tropic hurricane sweeps up the
gulf at night she falls on the cold stone floor and covers
her head, as if the very lightning might reveal that form
she loved so well, the great Virginia colonel. To Infelice
he was ever young, ever the heroic saviour of St. Louis.
That time could have changed him had never occurred to
her, — he was a type of immortal youth.
Infelice never speaks of these things, not even to her
father confessor; it is something too deep, too sacred, a
last touch of the world hid closer even than her heart.
And yet she believes he is coming, — that is the cause of
all this tumult and cannonading. Her hero, her warrior
wants her, and none can stay him.
And when the cession is fairly over and he comes not,
the disappointment prostrates her utterly. " He cares, he
cares no more! The Virginians? Did you say the Vir
ginians had come ? "
From that bed of delirium the Mother Superior of the
Ursuline house sent for the Mayor.
" I beg to be allowed to retire with my sisterhood to
some point under the protection of His Catholic Majesty
of Spain."
"Going!" exclaimed Monsieur le Mayor of New
Orleans. " For why? You shall not be disturbed, you
shall have full protection."
" Do you stand for France, revolution and infidelity? "
gasped the aged mother, denouncing the Mayor.
The people pled, the Mayor went down on his knees.
" Do not abandon our schools and our children] " But
the Mother Superior was firm.
Twenty-two years had the Donna De Leyba been a nun.
The old official records are lost, but out of twenty-five
nuns in the establishment we know the sixteen of Spain
went away.
All New Orleans gathered to see them depart. When
the gun sounded on Whitsunday Eve, sixteen women in
black came forth, heavily veiled. The convent gardens
were thronged with pupils, slaves knelt by the wayside,
THE CESSION OF ST. LOUIS 157
the Mayor and populace followed until they embarked
on the ship and sailed to Havana.
The old Ursuline convent of New Orleans is now the
archbishop's palace. Sister Infelice is gone, but near
some old cloister of Cuba we know her ashes must now
be reposing. Henceforth the gates were open. The wall
decayed, the moat was filled, and over it to-day winds the
handsomest boulevard in America.
The flatboatmen came home with romantic tales of the
land of the palmetto and orange, luxuries unknown in the
rigorous north. The tide of emigration so long held in
check burst its bounds and deluged Louisiana.
Among other Americans that settled at New Orleans
was the FiglTting Parson. His son Charles Mynn Thrus-
ton had married Fanny.
V
THE CESSION OF ST. LOUIS
LASS we must have, and quicksilver. Wife,
t me have the mirror."
The Madame threw up her hands. " The
precious pier glass my dead mother brought over from
France? What shall we have left?"
" But Rosalie, this is an emergency for the govern
ment. The men must have thermometers, and barome
ters, and I have no glass."
" The President will pay for the glass, Madame ; he
would consider it the highest use to which it could be
put," said Captain Lewis.
" And you shall have a better one by the next ship
that sails around from France."
So as usual to everything the Doctor wished, the good
woman consented. None had more unbounded faith in
Dr. Saugrain's gift of miracles than his own wife.
The huge glass, that had reflected Parisian scenes for
158 THE CONQUEST
a generation before coming to the wilds of America, was
now lifted from its gilt frame and every particle of
quicksilver carefully scraped from the back. Then the
pier plate was shattered and the fragments gathered, bit
by bit, into the Doctor's mysterious crucible, making the
country people watch and wonder.
So long had Meriwether Lewis been with Jefferson,
that he had imbibed the same eager desire to know, to
understand. When he met with Doctor Saugrain it was
Uke a union of kindred, spirits. Saugrain, the pupil,
friend, and disciple of the great Franklin, was often with
the American scientist when he experimented with his
kites, and drew down lightning to charge his Ley den jars.
Three times Dr. Saugrain came to Amerfca, twice as
guest of Dr. Franklin, before he settled down as physi
cian to the Spanish garrison at St. Louis in 1800. With
him he brought all his scientific lore, the latest of the
most advanced city in the world. When all the world
depended on flint and steel, Paris and Dr. Saugrain made
matches. He made matches for Lewis and Clark that
were struck on the Columbia a generation before Boston
or London made use of the secret.
Bitterly the cheerful, sprightly little Royalist in curls
lamented the French Revolution. "Oh, the guillotine!
the guillotine! My own uncle, Dr. Guillotine, invented
that instrument to save pain, not to waste life. But
when he saw his own friends led up to the knife, dis
tressed at its abuse he died in despair! "
Sufficient reason had Dr. Saugrain to be loyal to Louis
XVI. For more than two hundred years his people had
been librarians, book-binders, and printers for the King.
Litterateurs and authors were the Saugrains for six con
tinuous generations, and out of their scientific and his
torical publications came the bent of Dr. Antoine Fran-
gois Saugrain of St. Louis. But when the Bastile was
stormed, Saugrain left France for ever. An emigre, a
royalist, with others of the King's friends he came to the
land that honoured Louis XVI.
Between the Rue de 1'Eglise and the Rue des Granges,
at the extreme southwestern limit of the old village of
THE CESSION OF ST. LOUIS 159
St. Louis, stood Dr. Saugrain's modest residence of
cement with a six-foot stone wall around it and exten
sive gardens. In his " arboretum " Dr. Saugrain was
making a collection of the most attractive native trees
he found around St. Louis, and some there, imported
from Paris, cast their green shadows on 'the swans
of his swimming pond, an old French fancy for his
park.
In this happy home with its great library, Captain
Lewis became a welcome guest in that winter of 1803-4
while waiting for the cession. Under the Doctor he pur
sued his scientific studies, medicine, surgery, electricity,
for not even Dr. Barton in Philadelphia could surpass
the bright little Frenchman so strangely transplanted
here in this uttermost border.
The Doctor's taper fingers were always stained with
acids and sulphur; busy ever with blowpipe and cru
cible, he fashioned tubes, filled in quicksilver, graduated
cases, and handed out barometers and thermometers that
amazed the frontier.
"Great Medicine!" cried the Indians when he gave
them a shock of electricity. How Dr. Saugrain loved
to turn his battery and electrify the door-knobs when
those bothersome Indians tried to enter ! Or, " Here,
White Hair, is a shilling. You can have it if you will
take it out." The Osage chieftain plunges his arm into
a crock of electrified water to dash off howling with
affright.
With intense interest Captain Lewis stood by while-
the chemist-physician dipped sulphur-tipped splints of
wood into phosphorus, and lo! his little matches glowed
like Lucifer's own. " You can make the sticks yourself,"
he said. " I will seal the phosphorus in these small tin
boxes for safety."
" And have you any kine-pox? You must surely carry
kine-pox, for I hear those Omahas have died like cattle
in a plague."
" President Jefferson particularly directed me to carry
some kine-pox virus," replied Captain Lewis, "but really,
what he gave me seems to have lost its virtue. I wrote
160 THE CONQUEST
him so from Cincinnati, but fear it will be too late to
supply the deficiency."
Out of his medicine chest in the corner, the little Doc
tor brought the tiny vials. " Sent me from Paris. Carry
it, explain it to the Indians, use it whenever you can, -
it will save the life of hundreds." And other medicines,
simple remedies, the good savant prescribed, making up
a chest that became invaluable in after days.
Other friends were Gratiot and the Chouteaus, Au-
guste and Pierre. It was Auguste that had planned the
fortifications of St. Louis, towers and bastions, palisades,
demilunes, scarps, counter-scarps, and sally ports, only
finished in part when the city was handed over.
Long since had Carondelet offered rewards to the
traders of St. Louis to penetrate to the Pacific. Already
the Chouteau boats had reached the Mandan towns, but
freely they gave every information to the American
Captain.
" I send you herewith enclosed," wrote Lewis to the
President, " some slips of the Osage plum and apple.
Mr. Charles Gratiot, a gentleman of this place, has
promised that he would with pleasure attend to the
orders of yourself, or any of my acquaintances who may
think proper to write him on the subject. I obtained
the cuttings now sent you from the gardens of Mr.
Peter Chouteau, who resided the greater portion of his
time for many years with the Osage nation.
" The Osage might with a little attention be made to
form an ornamental and useful hedge. The fruit is a
large oval plum, of a pale yellow colour and exquisite
flavour. An opinion prevails among the Osages that
the fruit is poisonous, though they acknowledge they
have never tasted it."
The leaders of all the French colonies on the Missis
sippi were gentlemen of education and talent. They saw
what the cession meant, and hailed it with welcome. But
the masses, peaceable, illiterate, with little property and
less enterprise, contented, unambitious, saw not the fu
ture of that great valley where their fathers had camped
in the days of La Salle. Frank, open, joyous, unsus-
THE CESSION OF ST. LOUIS 161
pecting, wrapped in the pleasures of the passing hour,
they cared little for wealth and less for government pro
vided they were not worried with its cares. Their chil
dren, their fruits and flowers, the dance — happy always
were the Creole habitants provided only they heard the
fiddle string. Retaining all the suavity of his race, the
roughest hunter could grace a ballroom with the car
riage and manners of a gentleman.
Meanwhile Captain Clark was drilling the men at
camp after the fashion of Wayne. Other soldiers had
been engaged at Fort Massac and elsewhere, — Silas
Goodrich, Richard Windsor, Hugh Hall, Alexander Wil-
lard, and John B. Thompson, a surveyor of Vincennes.
Never had St. Louis such days! Hurry, hurry and
bustle in the staid and quiet town that had never before
known any greater excitement than a church festival or
a wedding, — never, that is, since those days of war when
George Rogers Clark saved and when he threatened.
But now Lewis and Clark made a deep impression on
the villagers of the power and dignity of the United
States Government. Out of their purchases every mer
chant hoped to make a fortune; the eager Frenchmen
displayed their wares, — coffee, gunpowder, and blan
kets, tea at prices fabulous in deerskin currency 'and
sugar two dollars a pound.
But Lewis already had made up his outfit, — richly
laced coats, medals and flags from Jefferson himself,
knives, tomahawks, and ornaments for chiefs, barrels of
beads, paints and looking-glasses, bright-coloured three-
point Mackinaw blankets, a vision to dazzle a child or
an Indian, who is also a child.
George Drouillard was found, the skilled hunter.
There was a trace of Indian in Drouillard; his French
fathers and grandfathers had trapped along the streams
of Ohio and Canada since before the days of Pontiac, in
fact, with Cadillac they had helped to build Detroit.
Every part of America was represented in that first
exploring expedition, — Lewis, the kinsman of Wash
ington, and Clark from the tidewater cavaliers of old
Virginia, foremost of the fighting stock that won Ken-
162 THE CONQUEST
tucky and Illinois, Puritan Yankees from New England,
Quaker Pennsylvanians from Carlisle, descendants of
landholders in the days of Penn, French interpreters and
adventurers whose barkentines had flashed along our
inland lakes and streams for a hundred years, and finally,
York, the negro, forerunner of his people.
Cruzatte and Labiche, canoemen, were of old Kaskas-
kia. Pierre Cruzatte was near-sighted and one-eyed,
but what of that? A trusted trader of the Chouteaus,
he had camped with the Omahas, and knew their tongue
and their country. Could such a prize be foregone for
any defect of eyesight?
Accustomed to roving with their long rifles and well-
filled bullet pouches, nowhere in the world could more
suitable heroes have been found for this Homeric
journey.
News of the sale had reached St. Louis while Captain
Lewis was struggling with those builders at Pittsburg.
" Sacre! Diable!" exclaimed the French. Some loved
France, some clung to Spain, some shook their heads.,
" De country? We never discuss its affaires. Dat ees
de business of de Commandante."
The winter of 1803-4 was very severe. In November
the ice began running and no one could cross until Feb
ruary. Then Captain Amos Stoddard, at Kaskaskia with
his troops, sent a letter to Don Carlos De Hault De Las-
sus by a sergeant going on business to Captain Lewis.
On top of the hill a double stockade of logs set verti
cally, the space between filled with dirt, a two-story log
building with small windows and a round stone tower
with a pointed cap of stone, — that was the fort where
the Spanish soldiers waited.
Down below, inhabitants in blue blanket capotes and
blue kerchiefs on their heads, now and then in red toque
or a red scarf to tie up their trousers, wandered in the
three narrow lanes that were the streets of St. Louis,
waiting. Before them flowed the yellow-stained, eddy-
spotted Mississippi, behind waved a sea of prairie grass
uninterrupted by farm or village to the Rockies.
Spring blossomed. Thickets of wild plum, cherry,
THE CESSION OF ST. LOUIS 163
wild crab-apples, covered the prairie. Vanilla-scented
locust blooms were shaking honey-dew on the wide ve
randas of the old St. Louis houses, when early in the
morning of May 9, American troops crossed the river
from Cahokia, and Clark's men from the camp formed
in line with fife and drum, and colours flying. At their
head Major Amos Stoddard of Boston and Captain Meri-
wether Lewis of Virginia led up to the Government
House.
Black Hawk was there to see his Spanish Father. He
looked out.
" Here comes your American Father," said the Com
mandant De Lassus.
" I do not want two Fathers !" responded Black Hawk.
Dubiously shaking his head as the Americans ap
proached, Black Hawk and his retinue flapped their
blankets out of one door as Stoddard and Captain
Lewis entered the other.
Away to his boats Black Hawk sped, pulling for dear
life up stream to his village at Rock Island. And with
him went Singing Bird, the bride of Black Hawk.
" Strange people have taken St. Louis," said the Hawk
to his Sacs. " We shall never see our Spanish Father
again."
A flotilla of Frenchmen came up from Kaskaskia, —
Menard, Edgar, Francis Vigo, and their friends. Vil
lagers left their work in the fields ; all St. Louis flocked
to La Place d'Armes in front of the Government House
to see the transfer.
In splendid, showy uniforms, every officer of the
Spanish garrison stood at arms, intently watching the
parade winding up the limestone footway from the boats
below.
With its public archives and the property of a vast
demesne, Don Carlos De Hault De Lassus handed over
to Major Stoddard the keys of the Government House
in behalf of France. A salvo of cannonry shook St.
Louis.
" People of Upper Louisiana," began De Lassus in a
choked and broken voice, " by order of the King, I am
1 64 THE CONQUEST
now about to surrender this post and its dependencies.
The flag which has protected you during nearly thirty-
six years will no longer be seen. The oath you took
now ceases to bind. Your faithfulness and courage in
upholding it will be remembered for ever. From the
bottom of my heart I wish you all prosperity."
De Lassus, Stoddard, Lewis, Clark, and the soldiers
filed up the yellow path, past the log church, to the fort
on the hill. The Spanish flag was lowered; De Lassus
wept as he took the fallen banner in his hand, but as the
Lilies of France flashed in the sun the Creoles burst into
tumultuous cheers. Not for forty years had they seen
that flag, the emblem of their native land. Cannon
roared, swords waved, and shouts were heard, but not
in combat.
The gates were thrown open; out came the Spanish
troops with knapsacks on their backs, ready to sail away
to New Orleans. The old brass cannon and munitions
of war were transported down the hill, while the Ameri
can soldiers in sombre uniforms filed into the dingy old
fort of Spain.
Major Stoddard sent for the French flag to be taken
down at sunset.
" No, no, let it fly ! Let it fly all night! " begged the
Creoles, and a guard of honour went up to watch the
flickering emblem of their country's brief possession.
All night long that Frerfch flag kissed the sky, all
night the guard of honour watched, and the little log
church of St. Louis was filled with worshippers. All the
romance of Brittany and Normandy rose to memory.
Rene Kiercereau the singer led in ballads of La Belle
France, and the glories of fields where their fathers
fought were rehearsed with swelling hearts. Not the
real France but an ideal was in their hearts, the tradi
tion of Louis XIV.
That was the last day of France in North America.
As the beloved banner sank the drums gave a long fu
neral roll, but when, instead, the red, white, and blue
burst on the breeze, the fifes struck into lively music and
the drums rained a cataract.
THE CESSION OF ST. LOUIS 165
" Three cheers for the American flag! " cried Charles
Gratiot in the spirit of the Swiss republic, but there were
no cheers. The Creoles were weeping. Sobs, lamenta
tions arose, but the grief was mostly from old French
men and their wives who so long had prayed that the
Fleur de Lis might wave abcrve San Loui'. Their sons
and daughters, truly, as Lucien Bonaparte had warned
Napoleon, " went to bed good Frenchmen, to awake and
find themselves Americans."
The huge iron cock in the belfry of the old log church
spun round and round, as if it knew not which way the
wind was blowing. In three days three *flags over St.
Louis ! No wonder the iron cock lost its head and spun
and spun like any fickle weather vane.
In the same square with the Government House stood
one of the Chouteau mansions. Auguste Chouteau had
been there from the beginning, when as a fearless youth
with Laclede he had penetrated to the site of the future
San Loui' in 1764. He was a diplomat who met Indians
and made alliances. He had seen the territory pass under
Spain's flag, and in spite of that had made it more and
more a place of Gallic refuge for his scattered country
men. He had welcomed Saugrain, Cerre, Gratiot, in
fact, — he and his brother Pierre remembered the day
when there was no San Loui'.
A band of Osage chiefs had come in to see their great
Spanish father. With wondering eyes they watched the
cession, and were handed over to Captain Lewis to deal
with in behalf of the United States. A French messen
ger was sent ahead with a letter to the tribe.
" The Americans taken San Loui' ? "
Manuel Lisa, the Spaniard, was disgusted, — it broke
up his monopoly of the Osage trade. " We will not haf
the Americans ! "
The Osages burnt the letter.
1 66 THE CONQUEST
VI
SERGEANT ORDWAY WRITES A LETTER
THE winter of 1802-3 had been uncommonly severe.
Unknown to George Shannon, that winter his
father hunting in the dense woods of Ohio lost his
way in a snow-storm and was frozen to death. Unaware
of the tragedy at home, unaware also of his own inherited
facility for getting lost, the boy set out up the winding
staircase of the wild Missouri.
An older brother, John, nineteen years of age, became
the stay of that widowed mother with her seven small
children, the least a baby, Wilson Shannon, twice the
future Governor of Ohio and once the Governor of
Kansas.
With a pad on his knee every soldier boy wrote home
from the camp on River Dubois opposite the mouth of
the Missouri. Down through the years Sergeant Ord-
way's letter has come to us.
" CAMP RIVER DUBOIS, April the 8th, 1804.
" HONOURED PARENTS, — I now embrace this opportunity
of writeing to you once more to let you know where I am
and where I am going. I am well thank God and in high
Spirits. I am now on an expedition to the westward, with
Capt. Lewis and Capt. Clark, who are appointed by the
President of the United States to go on an Expedition
through the interior parts of North America. We are to
ascend the Missouri River with a boat as far as it is
navigable and then to go by land to the western ocean, if
nothing prevents. This party consists of twenty-five picked
men of the armey and country likewise and I am so happy
as to be one of them picked from the armey and I and all
the party are if we live to return to receive our discharge
whenever we return again to the United States if we choose
it. This place is on the Mississippi River opposite to the
mouth of the Missouri River and we are to start in ten
INTO THE LAND OF ANARCHY 167
days up the Missouri River, this has been our winterquar-
ters. we expect to be gone 18 months or two years, we
are to receive a great reward for this expedition when we
return. I am to receive 15 dollars a month and at least 400
ackers of first rate land and if we make great discoveries as
we expect the United States has promised to make us great
rewards, more than we are promised, for fear of accidents
I wish to inform you that [personal matters],
I have received no letters since Betseys yet but will write
next winter if I have a chance.
" Yours, etc.,
" JOHN ORDWAY, Segt.
"To STEPHEN ORDWAY,
Dumbarton, N. H."
VII
INTO THE LAND OF ANARCHY
THE boats were ready, the red pirogue and the
white, from St. Louis, fresh painted, trim and slim
upon the water, and the big bateau, fifty-five feet
from stem to stern, with setting poles, sweeps, a square
sail to catch the breeze, and twenty-two oars at the
rowlocks.
Down under the decks and in the cabins, had been
packed the precious freightage, government arms, rifles
made at Harper's .Ferry under Lewis's own superinten
dence, tents, ammunition, bales and boxes of Indian
presents, provisions, tools. Into the securest lockers went
Lewis's astronomical instruments for ascertaining the
geography of the country, and the surgical instruments
that did good service in the hands of Clark.
Nothing was forgotten, even small conveniences,
candles, ink, mosquito bars. It took half a million to
send Stanley to Africa. For twenty-five hundred dollars
Lewis and Clark made as great a journey.
To assist in carrying stores and repelling Indian at-
1 68 THE CONQUEST
tacks, Corporal Warfington and six soldiers had been
engaged at St. Louis and nine French boys of Cahokia,
inured to the paddle and the camp. Feather- decked and
beaded they came, singing the songs of old Cahokia to
start the little squadron.
The Americans had knives in their belts, pistols in their
holsters, knapsacks on their backs, powder horns and
pouches of ammunition, ink horns and quills, ready to
face the wilderness and report. Lewis encouraged every
one to keep a journal.
" I niver wint to school but nineteen days in me boy
hood and that was whin I was a man," said Patrick Gass.
But what Pat lacked in books he made up in observation
and shrewd reasoning; hence it fell out that Patrick Gass's
journal was the first published account of the Lewis and
Clark expedition. All honour to Patrick Gass. Of such
are our heroes.
The cession was on Wednesday, May 9, 1804, and all
the men were there but a few who guarded camp. At
three o'clock the following Monday, May 14, Captain
Clark announced, " All aboard ! " The heavy-laden
bateau and two pirogues swung out, to the voyageurs'
chanson, thrilling like a brass band as their bright new
paddles cut the water :
" A frigate went a-sailing,
Mon joli ccsur de rose,
Far o'er the seas away,
Joli ccsur d>un rosier,
Joli cceur d'un rosier."
And hill and hollow echoed,
*' Mon joli co3ur de rose."
" San Chawle ! " cried Cruzatte the bowsman at two
o'clock, Wednesday, when the first Creole village hove in
sight. At a gun, the signal of traders, all St. Charles
rushed to see the first Americans that had ever come up
the Missouri. And straggling behind the Frenchmen
came their friends, the Kickapoos of Kaskaskia, now on
a hunt in the Missouri.
INTO THE LAND OF ANARCHY 169
" Meet us up the river with a good fat deer," said
Captain Clark. The delighted Kickapoos scattered for
the hunt.
Five days the boats lay at St. Charles, waiting for
Captain Lewis who was detained fixing off the Osage
chiefs at St. Louis.
Patrick Gass wrote in his journal, " It rained." Ser
geant Floyd adds, " Verry much Rain." Captain Clark
chronicles, " Rain, thunder, and lightning for several
days." But never on account of a flurry of rain did the
sociable French of St. Charles fail in polite attentions to
their guests on the river bank.
On Sunday, boats were descried toiling up from St.
Louis with a dozen gentlemen, who had come to escort
Captain Lewis and bid " God speed ! " to the expedition.
Captain Stoddard was there, and Auguste Chouteau,
availing himself of every opportunity to forward the
enterprise. Monsieur Labbadie had advice and Gratiot
and Dr. Saugrain, little and learned, with the medicine
chest.
With throbbing hearts the captains stole a moment for
a last home letter to be sent by the returning guests.
" My route is uncertain," wrote Clark to Major Cro-
ghan at Locust Grove. " I think it more than probable
that Captain Lewis or myself will return by sea."
" Bon voyage! bon voyage, mes voyageursl " cried all
the French habitants of St. Charles, waving caps and
kerchiefs to answering cheers from the crew and the
guns. " Bonsoir et bon voyage — tak' care for you —
prenez garde pour les sauvages." With a laugh the
voyageurs struck up a boat song.
The boats slid away into the west, that West where
France had stretched her shadowy hand, and Spain, and
England. The reign of France fell with Montcalm on
the Heights of Abraham, flickering up again only in that
last act when Napoleon gave us Louisiana.
" The Kickapoos ! The Kickapoos ! " Through bush
and brier above St. Charles, the bedraggled Indians came
tugging down to the shore four fine fat deer. Bacon
fare and hardtack were relegated to the hold. From that
1 70 THE CONQUEST
hour Lewis and Clark threaded the gameland of the
world.
" Joost wait onteel dey get ento de boofalo ! " com
mented those wise young voyageurs, Cruzatte and Drouil-
lard, nodding at one another as the cooks served out the
savoury meat on the grass, and every man drew forth his
long hunting-knife and little sack of salt.
"Where is my old friend, Daniel Boone?" inquired
Captain Clark, three days later at Charette, the last settle
ment ~on the Missouri border. This, but for Spanish in
terference, would have been their camping station the
previous winter. Colonel Boone, six miles from the
Missouri, was holding court beneath his Judgment
Tree.
The June rise of the Missouri was at hand. Days of
rain and melting snows had set the mad streams whirl
ing. The muddy Missouri, frothing, foaming, tore at its
ragged banks that, yawning, heavily undermined, leaped
suddenly into the water. Safety lay alone in mid-stream,
where the swift current, bank-full and running like a
millrace, bore down toward the Mississippi.
To stem it was terrific. In spite of oars and sails and
busy poling, the bateau would turn, raked ever and anon
with drifts of fallen trees. And free a moment, some
new danger arose. Down out of sight, water-soaked logs
scraped the keel with vicious grating. And above, for
midable battering-rams of snags sawed their black heads
up and down defiantly, as if Nature herself had blockaded
the way with a chevaux de frise.
Poles broke, oars splintered, masts went headlong, the
boat itself careened almost into the depths. It was a des
perate undertaking to stem the mad Missouri in the midst
of her wild June rise.
But that very rise, so difficult to oppose upstream, was
a sliding incline the other way. May 27, two canoes
loaded with furs came plunging full tilt out of the north.
" Where from ? What news ? "
" Two months from the Omaha nation, seven hundred
miles up the river," sang out the swiftly passing French
men bound for St. Louis.
INTO THE LAND OF ANARCHY 171
Behind them a huge raft, —
" From the Pawnees on the Platte! "
And yet behind three other rafts, piled, heaped, and
laden to the water's edge, —
" From the Grand Osage! "
Such alone was greeting and farewell, as the barks,
unable to be checked, went spinning down the water.
What a gala for the winter-bound trapper ! Home
again! home again! flying down the wild Missouri in
the mad June rise ! They stopped not to camp or to hunt,
but skimming the wave, fairly flew to St. Louis. They
came, those swift-gliding boats, like visions of another
world, the world Lewis and Clark were about to enter.
June 5, two more canoes flashed by with beaver, —
" From eighty leagues up the Kansas river ! "
June 8, boats with beaver and otter slid by, and rafts
of furs and buffalo tallow, —
" From the Sioux nation ! "
Dorion, an old Frenchman on a Sioux raft, engaged to
go back with Lewis and Clark to interpret for them the
language of his wife's relations.
A thousand miles against the current ! Now and then
a southwest wind would fill out the big square-cut sail
and send the heavy barge ploughing steadily up. Again,
contrary winds kept them on the walking boards all day
long, with heads bent low over the setting-pole.
Warm and warmer grew the days. Some of the men
were sunstruck. The glitter of sun on the water inflamed
their eyes. Some broke out with painful boils, and mos
quitoes made night a torture.
Now and then they struck a sand-bar, and leaping into
the water the voyageurs ran along shore with the cordelle
on their shoulders, literally dragging the great boat into
safety.
" Mon cher Captinne ! de win' she blow lak' hurri
cane ! " cried the voyageurs.
Down came the prairie gale, almost a tornado, snap
ping the timber on the river-banks, and lashing the water
to waves that surged up, over, and into the boats. .The
sky bent black above them, the fierce wind howled, and
172 THE CONQUEST
the almost exhausted men strained every nerve to hold
the rocking craft.
" I strong lak' moose, not 'fraid no t'ing," remarked
Cruzatte, clambering back into tlie boat wet as a drowned
kitten.
Hot and tired, June 26 they tied up at the mouth of
Kansas River. " Eat something, tak' leetle drink also,"
said the voyageurs. On the present site of Kansas City
they pitched their tents, and stretched their limbs from
the weariness of canoe cramp.
* The most signs of game I iver saw," said Patrick
Gass, wandering out with his gun to find a bear. " Im-
ince Kurds of Deer," bears in the bottoms, beaver, tur
keys, geese, and a " Grat nomber of Goslins," say the
journals, but not an Indian.
" Alas ! " sighed the old voyageurs with friendly pity.
" De Kansas were plaintee brave people, but de Sac and
de Sioux, dey drive 'em up de Kansas River."
Caesar conquered Gaul, but the mercatores were there
before him. Lewis and Clark ascended the Missouri,
but everywhere the adventurous Frenchmen had gone
before them, peddlers of the prairie, out with Indian
goods buying skins.
But now Americans had come. The whippoorwill
sang them to sleep, the wolf howled them awake. The
owl inquired, " Who? Who? Who? " in the dark tree-
tops at the mouth of the Kansas River.
On, on crept the boats, past grand old groves of oak
and hickory, of walnut, ash, and buckeye, that had stood
undisturbed for ages. Swift fawn flitted by, and strange
and splendid birds that the great Audubon should come
one day to study. On, on past the River-which-Cries,
the Weeping Water, the home of the elk. Tall cotton-
woods arose like Corinthian columns wreathed with ivy,
and festoons of wild grape dipped over and into the
wave.
The River-which-Cries marked, the boundary of two
nations, the Otoes and Omahas. Almost annually its
waters were reddened with slaughter. Then came the
old men and women and children from the Otoe villages
INTO THE LAND OF ANARCHY 173
on the south and from the Omahas on the north and
wept and wept there, until it came to be known as Ne-
hawka, the Weeping Water.
July came and the waters were falling. With a fair
wind, on the 2ist they sailed past the mouth of the great
river Platte. In the summer evening Lewis and Clark
in their pirogue paddled up the Platte.
" Here I spen' two winter wit' de Otoe," said Drouil-
lard the hunter. " De Otoe were great nation, but de
Sioux an' de 'Maha drove dem back on de Pawnee."
''And the Pawnees?"
" Dey built villages an' plant corn an' wage war wid
de Osage."
Ten days later preparations were made to meet the
Otoes at Council Bluffs. On a cottonwood pole the flag
was flying. A great feast was ready, when afar off,
Drouillard and Cruzatte were seen approaching with
their friends.
" Boom," went the blunderbuss, and the council smoke
arose under an awning made of the mainsail of the
bateau. Every man of the expedition, forty-five in all,
paraded in his best uniform.
Lewis talked. Clark talked. All the six chiefs ex
pressed satisfaction in the change of government. They
begged to be remembered to their Great Father, the
President, and asked for mediation between them and
the Omahas.
" WThat is the cause of your war ? "
" We have no horses," answered the childlike Otoes.
" We borrow their horses. Then they scalp us. We
fear the Pawnees also. We very hungry, come to their
village when they are hunting, take a little corn ! "
The Captains could scarce repress a smile, nor yet a
tear. Thefts, reprisals, midnight burnings and slaughter,
this was the reign immemorial in this land of anarchy.
In vain the tribes might plant, — never could they reap.
" We poor Indian," was the universal lament.
Severely solemn, Lewis and Clark hung medals on the
neck of each chief, and gave him a paper with greetings
from Thomas Jefferson with the seals of Lewis and
174 THE CONQUEST
Clark impressed with red wax and attached with a blue
ribbon.
" When you look at these, remember your Great
Father. You are his children. He bids you stop war
and make peace with one another." In 1860, the Otoe
Indians exhibited at Nebraska City those identical papers,
borne for more than half a century in all their homeless
wanderings, between flat pieces of bark and tied with
buckskin thongs.
Then gifts were distributed and chiefs' dresses. With
more handshakings and booming of cannon, the flotilla
sailed away that sultry afternoon one hundred years
ago. The chiefs stood still on the shore and wonder-
ingly gazed at one another.
" These are the peacemakers ! "
A week later Lewis and Clark entered the Omaha
country and raised a flag on the grave of Blackbird.
Encamping on a sandbar opposite the village, Sergeant
Ordway and Cruzatte were dispatched to summon the
chiefs. Here Cruzatte had traded two winters. Up
from the river he found the old trails overgrown. Break
ing through sunflowers, grass, and thistles high above
their heads, they came upon the spot where once had
stood a village. Naught remained but graves.
The Omahas had been a military people, feared even
by the Sioux, the Kansas, and the far-away Crows.
Strange mystery clung to Blackbird. Never had one
so powerful ruled the Missouri. At his word his enemy
perished. Stricken by sudden illness, whoever crossed
the will of Blackbird died, immediately, mysteriously.
Then came the smallpox in 1800. Blackbird him
self died and half his people. In frenzy the agonised
Omahas burnt their village, slew their wives and chil
dren, and fled the fatal spot, — but not until they had
buried Blackbird. In accord with his last wish, they
took the corpse of the Omaha King to the top of the
highest hill and there entombed him, sitting upright on
his horse that he might watch the traders come and go.
And one of those traders bore in his guilty heart the
secret of Blackbird's power. He had given to him a
INTO THE LAND OF ANARCHY 175
package of arsenic. Blackbird and Big Elk's father went
to St. Louis in the days of the French and made a treaty.
A portrait of the chief was then painted that is said to
hang now in the Louvre at Paris.
A delegation of Otoes had been persuaded to come up
and smoke the peace-pipe with the Omahas. But not an
Omaha appeared. And the Otoes, released from over
whelming fear, Big Horse and Little Thief, Big Ox and
Iron Eyes, smoked and danced on the old council ground
of their enemies, whose scalps they had vowed to hang
at their saddle bow.
Sergeant Floyd danced with the rest that hot August
night, and became overheated. He went on guard duty
immediately afterward, and lay down on a sandbar to
cool. In a few moments he was seized with frightful
pains.
Nathaniel Pryor awakened the Captains.
" My cousin is very ill."
All night Lewis and Clark used every endeavour to
relieve the suffering soldier. At sunrise the boats set
sail, bearing poor Floyd, pale and scarce breathing.
There was a movement of the sick boy's lips, —
" I am going away. I want you to write me a letter."
And there, on the borders of Iowa, he dispatched his
last message to the old Kentucky home. When they
landed for dinner Floyd died.
With streaming tears Patrick Gass, the warm-hearted,
made a strong coffin of oak slabs. A detail of brother
soldiers bore the body to the top of the bluff and laid it
there with the honours of war, the first United States
soldier to be buried beyond the Mississippi, and on a
cedar post they carved his name.
With measured tread and slow the soldiers came down
and camped on Floyd's River below, in the light of the
setting sun.
Years passed. Around that lovely height, Floyd's
Bluff, Sioux City grew. Travellers passed that way and
said, " Yonder lies Charles Floyd on the bluff." Relic
hunters chipped away the cedar post. Finally, the Mis
souri undermined the height, and the oakwood coffin
176 THE CONQUEST
came near falling into the river, but it was rescued and
buried farther back in 1857. Recently a magnificent
monument was dedicated there, to commemorate his
name and his mission for ever, — the first light-bearer
to perish in the West.
A few days later a vote was cast for a new sergeant
in the place of Floyd, and Patrick Gass received the
honour. Every day Floyd had written in his journal,
and now it was given into the hand of Captain Clark to
be forwarded, on the first opportunity, to his people.
VIII
"THE SIOUX! THE SIOUX!"
HAT river is this' Dorion? " Captain Lewis
had thrown open his infantry uniform to
catch the cooling gust down a silver rift in
the shore.
" Petite Riviere des Sioux. Go to Des Moines country.
Pass tro te Lake of te Spirit, full of islands. Lead to Dog
Plain, Prairie du Chien, four days from te Omaha coun
try. Des Sioux — "
Dorion drew his forefinger across his throat and lapsed
into silence. They were his people, he would not tra
duce them. But his listeners understood, — the Sioux
were " cut-throats," this was their name among the
tribes.
The voyageurs trembled, " Bon Dieu! le Sioux sau-
vage, he keel de voyageur an' steal deir hair ! "
The Sioux, the terrible Sioux, were dog Indians, ever
on the move, raiding back and forth, restless and un
sleeping. Almost to Athabasca their travoises kicked
up the summer dust, their dog trains dragged across the
plains of Manitoba. On the Saskatchewan they pitched
their leather tents and chased the buffalo; around Lake
Winnipeg they scalped the Chippeways. At the Falls of
"THE SIOUX! THE SIOUX!" 177
St. Anthony they spread their fishing nets, and at Niagara
Falls the old French Jesuits found them.
Now they were stealing horses. For horses, down the
Mississippi they murdered the Illinois. For horses, the
Mandan on the upper Missouri heard and trembled.
" The Sioux ! the Sioux ! " The Ponca paled in his mud
hut on the Niobrara, the Omaha retreated up the Platte,
the Cheyenne hid in the cedar-curtained recesses of the
Black Hills.
More puissant than the Six Nations of the Iroquois,
the Sioux Confederacy dominated from the Red River
of the North to the Red River of Texas. Wilder than
the Comanches they rode, more cunning in theft than the
Crows, more bloodthirsty than the Blackfeet. On the red
man's triple plea for war, — horses, scalps, and wives,
— the Sioux were pirates of the streams and despots of
the prairie.
Mettlesome with the bow, fiery in battle, strong, brave,
wild, kings of the hills and monarchs of the trails, they
ruled the earth in splendid savagery. The buffalo was
theirs, the beaver and the deer, and woe betide the rival
that poached on their preserves. Did the poor Shoshone
venture beyond the Rockies, he was flayed and burned
alive. No lake, no stream, no river between the Missis
sippi and the Rockies remained unstained by their red
hatchet.
And what a chapter when the traders came ! Unwrit
ten yet are those days of fierce and constant battle.
Even Dorion himself dreaded the daring freebooters
into whose tribe he had married. His own offspring par
took of the wild fierce spirit of their people. Like eaglets
or young panthers, they clutched at him with claws and
talons, — with difficulty the little Frenchman held them
back as the lion-tamer holds the whelps.
Of Dorion's possessions the Sioux took what they
pleased. For the privilege of trading he smiled and gave
them all, then in generosity he was heaped with skins.
Dorion knew the Sioux, knew their best and worst
Somewhere in this Sioux country his faithful spouse was
waiting ; he was looking for her now, — a model squaw,
12
1 78 THE CONQUEST
a tireless slave who dug his roots and made his garments,
brought his wood and water, and, neglected, bore his
children.
" Pilicans ! pilicans ! "
It was the voice of Patrick Gass, beyond the Little
Sioux. A low sand island was covered with huge, white,
web-footed beauties fishing in the chocolate Missouri.
When the scrimmage was over two handsome birds lay
in the bateau, one, the queen of the flock, brought down
by Lewis himself. She was a splendid specimen, six feet
from tip to tip, pure white with a tinge of rose, and an
enormous pouch full of fish under her bill.
" Out with the fish. Let us measure that pouch."
Lewis's enthusiasm was contagious. All hands gath
ered while he poured in water, five gallons.
" The average capacity is but two," said Captain Clark.
" We must preserve this trophy."
To-day that beautiful bird, of strong maternal instincts,
is the emblem of the State of Louisiana.
Again Lewis put the question, " What stream,
Dorion ? "
" Te Great Sioux ! Two hundret mile to te Sioux Fall,
an' beyont — almost to St. Peters."
A smile relaxed old Dor ion's leathern face, —
" Below te Fall, a creek frorri te cliffs of red rock.
All Indian get te peace-pipe. No battle dere, no war."
Of the famous red pipestone quarry old Dorion spoke,
the beautiful variegated rock out of which resplendent
Dakota cities should be built in the future.
" Te rock ees soft, cut it wit te knife, then hard and
shining."
All tribes, even those at war, could claim asylum at the
red pipestone. The Sioux came, and the Pawnee, to camp
on its banks and fashion their calumets. The soft clay
pipes, hardened into things of beauty, were traded from
tribe to tribe, emblems and signals of peace. Captain
Lewis himself had one, bought in St. Louis, brought
down from that quarry by some enterprising French
trader.
" Buffalo! buffalo! buffalo!" A grand shout arose
"THE SIOUX! THE SIOUX!" 179
at sight of the surging herds. " Plaintee boofalo now,"
said the voyageurs. Upon the led horses along shore,
Clark and Joseph Fields dashed away for a first shot.
Again rejoicing cooks went hunting up the kettles, and
the whole expedition paused a day for a grand hunt.
" Te Yankton Sioux! " joyfully announced old Dorion,
as they neared the familiar chalk bluffs of " des riviere
Jaques, tat go almost to te Red Riviere of te Winnipeg."
All over these streams old Dorion had trapped the beaver.
With Sergeant Pryor and another, Dorion set out for
the Indian camp. The Yankton Sioux saw the white men
approaching and ran with robes to carry them in state to
camp.
" No," answered the Sergeant, " we are not the com
manders. They are at the boats."
Dorion led the way to his wigwam. His polite old
squaw immediately spread a bearskin for them to sit on.
Another woman killed a dog, cut it up, and boiled it
and gave it to them to eat, a token of friendship.
Forty clean and well-kept lodges were in this Yankton
village, of dressed buffalo and elk skin, painted red and
white and very handsome. And each lodge had a cooking
apartment attached.
Under the Calumet bluffs the flag was flying when the
Yankton Sioux came down in state and crossed the river
to the council. The Yankton Sioux were reputed to be
the best of their nation, and brave as any, with their neck
laces of bear's claws, paints, and feathers. They were
kingly savages, dignified and solemn, with heads shaved
to the eagle plume, and arrayed in robes wrought with
porcupine quills.
With Dorion as interpreter Captain Lewis delivered
the usual speech, and presented flags, medals, and a chief's
dress, a richly laced coat, cocked hat, and red feather.
The ceremonious Indians withdrew to consider a suit
able answer.
The next morning again the chiefs assembled, solemnly
seated in a row with enormous peace-pipes of red stone
and stems a yard long, all pointing toward the seats in
tended for Lewis and Clark.
i8o THE CONQUEST
But the great Indian diplomats did not hasten.
"Ha!"
Even the stoic Sioux could not refrain from an ejacu
lation of admiration as they half rose, pipe in hand, to
gaze in awe and wonder as the white chiefs entered the
council. No such traders ever came up the Missouri, no
such splendid apparitions as the Red Head Chief and his
brother, pink and white as the roses on the river Jaques.
Captain Lewis habitually wore his sunny hair in a
queue ; to-day it was loosened into a waving cataract, and
Clark, slipping off his eelskin bag, let his red locks fall,
a strange and wondrous symbol. No such red and gold
had ever been seen in the Indian country. With pale
berries they stained their porcupine quills, with ochre
painted the buffalo lodges, with vermilion rouged their
faces, but none like these growing on the heads of men !
Seating themselves with all due dignity, Lewis and
Clark scarce lifted their eyes from the ground as the
Grand Chief, Weucha, extended his decorated pipe in
silence. A full hour elapsed before Weucha, slipping his
robe to give full play to his arm, arose before them.
" I see before me my Great Father's two sons. We
very poor. We no powder, ball, knives. Our women and
children at the village no clothes. I wish my brothers
would give something to those poor people.
" I went to the English, they gave me a medal and
clothes. I went to the Spanish, they gave me a medal.
Now you give me a medal and clothes. Still we are poor.
I wish you would give something for our squaws."
Then other chiefs spoke. " Very poor. Have pity on
us. Send us traders. We want powder and ball."
Deadly as were the Sioux arrows, — one twang of
their bowstring could pierce a buffalo, — yet a better
weapon had crossed their vision. Firearms, powder, ball,
fabulous prices, these problems changed Indian history.
Congratulating themselves on this favourable encoun
ter with the dreaded Sioux, and promising everything,
Lewis and Clark went forward with renewed courage.
More and more buffaloes dotted the hills, and herds
of antelope, strange and new to science.
"THE SIOUX! THE SIOUX!" 181
" I must have an antelope," said Lewis.
At that moment he saw seven on a hilltop. Creeping
carefully near, they scented him on the wind. The wild
beauties were gone, and a similar flock of seven appeared
on a neighbouring height.
" Can they have spanned the ravine in this brief time?"
He looked, and lo ! on a third height and then a fourth
they skimmed the hills like cloud shadows, or winged
griffins of the fabled time, half quadruped and half bird.
" A cur'ous lill animal here, Captain," said one of the
hunters, handing him a limp little body. Its head was
like a squirrel's. Lewis stroked the long fine hair.
"What is it?"
Cruzatte, the bowman, paddle in hand, leaned over,
peering with his one near-sighted but intelligent eye.
" Ha! ha! ha! le petit Men! " he laughed. " Live in
te hole een te prairie. Leetle dog. Bark, yelp, yelp,
yelp, like te squirrel. All over te countree, whole towns,"
spreading his brown hands expressively.
After this lucid explanation the Captains, Lewis and
Clark, set out for a prairie-dog town. A few yelps, heels
in air, the town was deserted save for the tiny mounds
that told where each had hidden.
" Let us drown one out."
Forthwith, every man came puffing up with big brass
kettles full of water.
" Five barrels," says Clark in his journal, " were
poured into the holes but not a dog came out," and Pat
rick Gass adds, " Though they worked at the business
until night they only caught one of them."
More and more the hills were thronged with buffalo.
Even York, Captain Clark's black servant, went out and
killed two at one ride.
On the top of a high bluff the men had found the
skeleton of a huge fish, forty-five feet long and petrified.
" Blow, ye winds of morning,
Blow, blow, blow — "
George Shannon, the boy of the expedition, had enliv
ened many a sunrise with his jolly, rollicking Irish songs.
1 82 THE CONQUEST
But Shannon was lost! On the 28th of August he had
gone out to look for the strayed horses. It was now
September. Captain Lewis was wild, for at his request
George had joined the expedition and at his order he
had gone after the horses. Hunters had sought in every
direction, guns had been fired and the blunderbuss, and
smokes had been kindled from point to point.
" Shannon ! " A great shout went up as the forlorn
boy, emaciated and weary, came dragging into camp on
the nth of September.
It was a short story, soon told. He found the horses
and followed by mistake the trail of recent Indians, which
he mistook for footprints of the party. For days he fol
lowed the trail, exhausted his bullets, and lived on wild
grapes and a rabbit he killed with a stick. But he heard
no guns, saw no smoke.
In despair at last he came down to the river, to dis
cover that all this time he had been travelling ahead of the
boats ! The fatted buffalo-calf was killed and great was
the rejoicing, and at daylight next morning, Shannon's
" Blow, ye winds of morning,
Blow, blow, blow,"
rang again joyously over the Missouri.
" Danger! Quick! The bank is caving!"
At one o'clock in the night the guard gave the startled
cry. Barely was there time to loosen the boats and push
into midstream before the whole escarpment dropped like
an avalanche over the recent anchorage. Thus in one in
stant might have been blotted out the entire expedition,
to remain for all time a mystery and conjecture.
On the evening of September 24 the cooks and a guard
went ashore to get supper at the mouth of the river
Teton, the present site of Pierre, South Dakota. Five
Indians, who had followed for some time, slept with the
guard on shore.
Early next morning sixty Indians came down from a
Sioux camp and the Captains prepared for a council.
Under the flag and an awning, at twelve o'clock the com
pany paraded under arms. Dorion had remained behind
"THE SIOUX! THE SIOUX!" 183
at the Yankton village, so with difficulty, by the aid of
Drouillard and much sign language, a brief speech was
delivered. Black Buffalo, head chief, was decorated with
a medal, flag, laced coat, cocked hat, and red feather,
nor were the rest forgotten with smaller gifts, medals,
and tobacco.
The Captains would have gone on, but, " No ! No ! "
insisted Black Buffalo, seizing the cable of Clark's de
parting pirogue. .
Finally Clark and several of the men rowed them
ashore. But no sooner had they landed than one seized
the cable and held the boat fast. Another flung his arms
around the mast and stood immovable.
" Release me," demanded Clark, reddening at evidence
of so much treachery.
Black Buffalo advanced to seize Clark. The Captain
drew his sword. At this motion Captain Lewis, watch
ing from the bateau, instantly prepared for action.
The Indians had drawn their arrows and were bending
their great bows, when the black mouth of the blunder
buss wheeled toward them.
At this Black Buffalo ordered his men to desist, and
they sullenly fell away, but never was forgotten that time
when the Teton Sioux attempted to carry off Captain
Clark.
" We wished to see the boat more," said the Indians,
by way of excuse. " We wished to show it to our wives
and children."
To conciliate and to depart without irritation, Captain
Clark offered his hand. The chiefs refused to take it.
Turning, Clark stepped into the boat and shoved off.
Immediately three warriors waded in after him, and he
brought them on board. That night the whole expedi
tion slept under arms, with the Indians as guests. At
daylight crowds of Indian men, women, and children
waited on shore in the most friendly manner.
Ten well-dressed young men took Lewis and Clark up
on a highly decorated robe and carried them up to the
council tent. Dressed like dandies, seventy Indians sat
in this roomy council hall, the tail feathers of the golden
1 84 THE CONQUEST
eagle scarce quivering in their topknots. Impressively
in the centre on two forked sticks lay the long peace-pipe
above a bed of swan's down.
Outside, the redmen were roasting a barbecue. All
day they sat and smoked, and ate of buffalo beef and
pemmican. After sunset a huge council fire illuminated
the interior of the great lodge, and the dance began.
Wild Indian girls came shuffling with the reeking scalps
of Omahas, from a recent raid. Outside twenty-five
Omaha women prisoners and their children moaned in
the chill of an icy autumn night. It was their trail that
Shannon had followed for sixteen days.
About midnight, fatigued by the constant strain of
watchful anxiety, the Captains returned to the boats.
But not yet were they safely away. " To oars ! to oars !
the cable 's parted ! "
The Indians heard the call.
" The Omahas ! the Omahas ! " rang the cry up from
the Teton camp, that on every wind anticipated the whoop
of retaliating Omahas in search of their stolen wives and
children.
Then followed pandemonium of rushing Indians and
frightened calls. All night, with strained eyes, every
man held his rifle ready as they lay unanchored on the
water.
At daylight the wily Indians held the ropes and still
detained the boats. Resort to force seemed inevitable.
Flinging a carat of tobacco, " Black Buffalo," said Lewis,
" you say you are a great chief. Prove it by handing me
that rope." Flattered, Black Buffalo gave the rope, and
thankfully the boats pulled out with no more desire to
cultivate the Sioux.
THE ROMANCE OF THE MANDANS 185
IX
THE ROMANCE OF THE MANDANS
"TT THAT will they find?" asked the people of
V/^y the United States, discussing the journey of
* V Lewis and Clark.
" Numerous powerful and warlike nations of savages,
of gigantic stature, fierce, treacherous, and cruel, and
particularly hostile to white men."
" The mammoth of prehistoric time feeding from the
loftiest forests, shaking the earth with its tread of
thunder."
" They will find a mountain of solid salt glistening in
the sun with streams of brine issuing from its caverns."
" They will find blue-eyed Indians, white-haired, fairer
than other tribes, planting gardens, making pottery, and
dwelling in houses."
" Oh, yes," said the Federalists, " Jefferson has in
vented these stories to aggrandise the merit of his pur
chase. They never can cross the mountains. Human
enterprise and exertion will attempt them in vain."
" It was folly ! folly to send those men to perish mis
erably in the wilderness! It was a bold and wicked
scheme of Jefferson. They will never return alive to
this country."
Had not Jefferson himself in his anxiety directed Lewis
and Clark to have recourse to our consuls in Java, the
Isles of France and Bourbon, and the Cape of Good
Hope ? Heaven alone knew whither the Missouri — Co
lumbia might lead them!
But the white Indians —
In the history of Wales there is a story that on account
of wars in Wales a Welsh Prince in 1170 " prepared cer
tain shipps, with men and munition, and sought adven
tures by seas, sailing west, and leaving the coast of
Ireland so farre north, that he came to land unknowne,
1 86 THE CONQUEST
where he saw many strange things. . . . This Madoc
arriving in the countrey, in the which he came in the
year 1170, left most of his people there, and returning
back for more of his nation, went thither again with ten
sails/' and was never again heard of.
Six hundred years later Welshmen in America imag
ined that they could talk with some tribes, who said
" they came from white people but were now Indians,"
and the legend was related that white people had once
lived on the Atlantic coast, but had so many wars they
crossed the mountains and made boats and went down
the Ohio and up the Missouri, " where to this day live
the fair-haired, blue-eyed Mandans."
Our grandfathers believed this story, believed these
whites might have been cut off at the Falls of the Ohio
and some escaped. This is the excuse that Cornstalk
gave to Lord Dunmore for the attack at Point Pleasant :
" Long ago our fathers destroyed the whites in a great
battle at the Falls of the Ohio. We thought it might be
done again."
As if in proof of this statement, George Rogers
Clark and other first explorers at the Falls found Sand
Island at low water a mass of hacked and mutilated
human bones, whether of Indians or whites, no man
could tell.
And here now were Lewis and Clark, in the Autumn
of 1804, among the fabled Mandans, and here before
them was a Mr. Hugh McCracken, an Irishman, and
Rene Jussaume, a Frenchman, independent traders, who
for a dozen winters had drawn their goods on dog sleds
over from the British fort on the Assiniboine to trade
with the Mandans for buffalo robes and horses. Thirty
dogs they owned between them, great Huskies of the
Eskimo breed.
Jussaume was immediately engaged as interpreter, and
the first Sunday was spent in conversation with Black
Cat, head chief of the Mandans. All day the hospitable
blue-eyed, brown-haired Mandan women, fairer than
other Indians, kept coming in with gifts of corn, boiled
hominy, and garden stuffs, raised by their own rude
THE ROMANCE OF THE MANDANS 187
implements. Girls of ten years old with silver-gray hair
hanging down to their knees stood around and listened.
Yes, they had earthen pots and gardens, even ex
tensive fields of corn, beans, squashes, and sunflowers,
and houses — mud huts. They lived in little forted
towns that had been moved successively up, up, up the
Missouri.
" I believe what you have told us," said one of the
chiefs in the great council on Monday. " We shall now
have peace with the Ricaras. My people will be glad.
Then our women may lie down at night without their
moccasins on. They can work in the fields without look
ing every moment for the enemy."
" We have killed the Ricaras like birds," said another,
" until we are tired of killing them. Now we will send
a chief and some warriors to smoke with them."
Thus was the first effort for peace in the Mandan
country.
The high chill wind almost blew down the awning
over the great council. The men paraded up from the
boats, the blunderbuss was fired from the bow of the big
bateau, the long reed-stemmed stone-bowled pipes w*ere
smoked in amity.
" Here are suits of clothes for your chiefs," said Lewis,
handing out of a wooden chest the handsome laced uni
forms, cocked hats, and feathers. " To your women I
present this iron corn-mill to grind their hominy."
The solemn, sad-faced chiefs took the clothes and put
them on. The women flew at the corn-mill. All day
long they ground and ground and wondered at " the
great medicine " that could make meal with so little
trouble. Mortars and pestles were thrown behind the
lodges, discarded.
The next day Mr. McCracken set out on his return to
Fort Assiniboine, one hundred and fifty miles away, with
a friendly letter to the Chief Factor, Chaboillez, enclos
ing the passport of Lewis and Clark from the British
minister at Washington.
Yes, a passport, — so uncertain was that boundary —
n^ver yet defined. Where lay that line? To the sources
1 88 THE CONQUEST
of the Mississippi? But those sources were as hidden
as the fountain of the Nile. No white man yet had seen
Itasca.
Since before the Revolution the Chaboillez family had
traded at Michilimackinac. They were there in the days
when Wabasha descended on St. Louis, and had a hand
in all the border story.
While Lewis was negotiating with the Indians, Cap
tain Clark set out with Black Cat to select a point where
timber was plenty to build a winter camp.
" Hey, there ! are ye going to run aff and leave me all
to mesilf ? " exclaimed Patrick Gass, head carpenter, busy
selecting his tools and equipments. " Niver moind, I can
outwalk the bist o' thim."
Strong, compact, broad-chested, heavy-limbed, but lean,
sprightly, and quick of motion, Pat was soon at the side
of his Captain. " 1 can show ye a pint or two about
cabins, I 'm thinkin'."
Clark smiled. He knew something about cabins
himself.
The day was fine and crowds of Indians came to watch
proceedings as Clark's men began to cut the tall cotton-
woods and roll up the cabins.
Every day the Indians came in crowds to watch the
wonderful building of the white men's fort, the deer-skin
windows and mud-plastered chimneys. Turning loose
their horses, all day long the red men lay on the grass
watching the details of this curious architecture. At
night, gathering an armful of cottonwood boughs
stripped from the fort timber, each fed his horse and
meandered thoughtfully homeward in the red sunset.
One day two squaws came, a leathery old dame and a
captive Indian girl from the Rocky Mountains, — the
handsome young Sacajawea, the Bird- Woman.
" She my slave," said Charboneau, a Frenchman in
blanket capote and kerchief around his head. " I buy
her from de Rock Mountain. I make her my wife."
Charboneau lived with the Minnetarees, friends and
neighbours of the Mandans.
Shahaka, the Big White Head Chief, came, too, with
THE ROMANCE OF THE MANDANS 189
his squaw packing on her back " one hundred pounds of
very fine meat." Whenever Shahaka crossed the river
his squaw picked up the buffalo-skin canoe and carried
it off on her back. Those canoes were made exactly Uke
a Welsh coracle.
The days grew colder, the frost harder. Ice began to
run in the river and the last boats in from the hunt
brought thirty-two deer, eleven elk, and buffalo that
were jerked and hung in the winter smoke-house.
By November 20 the triangular fort was ready, —
two rows of cabins of four rooms each, with lofts above
where, snug and warm under the roof next to the chim
neys, the men slept through the long cold winter nights
on beds of grass, rolled up in their blankets and fuzzy
robes of buffalo.
In the frosty weather there came over the prairies
from Fort Assiniboine seven Northwest traders, led by
Frangois Antoine Larocque and Charles Mackenzie, with
stores of merchandise to trade among the Mandans.
They immediately waited upon Lewis and Clark.
" We are not traders," said the Americans, " but ex
plorers on our way to the Pacific."
Through Larocque' s mind flashed the journey of Sir
Alexander Mackenzie and its outcome. That might
mean more than a rival trader. " He is distributing flags
and medals among the Mandans," came the rumour.
" In the name of the United States I forbid you from
giving flags and medals to the Indians, as our Govern
ment looks upon those things as sacred emblems of the
attachment of the Indians to our country," said Captain
Lewis to Monsieur Larocque when next he called at
Fort Mandan.
" As I have neither flags nor medals, I run no risk of
disobeying those orders, I assure you," answered the easy
Frenchman.
' You and all persons are at liberty to come into our
territories to trade or for any other purpose, and will
never be molested unless your behaviour is such as would
subject an American citizen himself to punishment,"
continued Lewis.
1 90 THE CONQUEST
" And will the Americans not trade? "
" We may and shall probably have a public store well
assorted of all kinds of Indian goods. No liquors are to
be sold."
" A very grand plan they have schemed/' muttered
Larocque, as he went away, " but its being realised is
more than I can tell."
While talking with the Captains, Larocque had an eye
on a Hudson's Bay trader who had appeared on the scene.
" Beg pardon. I must be off," said Larocque, slip
ping out with Charboneau to outwit if possible the Hud
son's Bay man and reach the Indians first. But before
he got off a letter arrived from Chaboillez that altered all
plans.
Unknown to Lewis and Clark, though they gradually
came to discover it, hot war was waging in the north.
For the sake of furs, rival traders cut and carved and
shot and imprisoned each other. For the sake of furs
those same traders had held Detroit thirteen years be
yond the Revolution. Furs came near changing the bal
ance of power in North America.
The old established Hudson's Bay Company claimed
British America. The ambitious, energetic Northwest
ers of Montreal disputed the right. And now that Sir
Alexander Mackenzie, a Canadian bourgeois, had be
come a famous explorer, knighted by the King, jeal
ousies broke out in the Northwest company itself.
Simon McTavish, lord of the Northwesters, who had
done all he could to hold the Lakes for Britain, would
rule or ruin. But the Northwesters swore by Mackenzie.
So the two factions fought each other, and both fought
the Hudson's Bay Company.
" The Northwesters are no better than they ought to
be," said the men of Hudson's Bay. " They sent an em
bassy to Congress in 1776." In fact a little change in
the balance might have thrown the Northwesters over to
the American side and altered the history of a continent.
' The quarrelling traders of the North are almost as
bad as the Indians," said Lewis, — " they demoralise
and inflame the Indians."
THE ROMANCE OF THE MANDANS 191
" Trade with me," said Hudson's Bay. " The North
westers will cheat you."
" Trade with me," said the Northwester. " Hudson's
Bay are bad men."
With troubled eyes the Indians listened, then scalped
them both. Some bloody tales that North could tell,
around the plains of lovely Winnipeg, out on the lone
Saskatchewan, and over to Athabasca.
But now the Americans, — this was a new force in
the West.
December i, the Americans began to cut and carry
pickets to complete the high stockade and gate across
the front of Fort Mandan. December 6 it was too cold
to work, and that night the river froze over in front of
the fort with solid ice an inch and a half thick.
At nine o'clock next morning Chief Shahaka, Big
White, came puffing in with news.
" De boofalo! de boofalo! " interpreted Jussaume, lis
tening intently to the long harangue of the chief who
was making all sorts of sign language and excitedly
pointing up the river.
" De boofalo, on de prairie, comin' eento de bottom."
In short order Lewis, Clark, and fifteen men were out
with the Indians mounted on horseback. Then came the
din and chase of battle, a sight to fire the blood and thrill
the calmest heart.
Riding among the herd, each Indian chose his victim,
then, drawing his arrow to the last notch of the bow
string, let it fly. Another and another whizzed from
the same string until the quiver was exhausted. The
wounded beast, blinded by its mane, sometimes charged
the hunter. But the swift steed, trained for the con
test, wheeled and was gone. The buffalo staggered for
a little, then, struck in a mortal part, fell headlong,
pawing up the dust and snow in frantic efforts to rise
and fly.
Into the midst came the Captains and their men, and
every man brought down his buffalo. At twelve degrees
below zero and in a northwest wind, Lewis and his men
started out again the next morning to chase the herds
192 THE CONQUEST
that darkened the prairie. The air was filled with frosty
flakes, the snow was deep and clinging, but all day and
until after dark the exciting hunt held them to the saddle,
and only when they came to the fire did the participants
realise that their hands and feet were frostbitten.
Cold and colder grew the days. Two suns shone in
the sky, prognosticator of still deeper frost. Brilliant
northern lights glowed along the Arctic, but still they
chased the buffalo until the morning of December 13,
when Dr. Saugrain's thermometer stood twenty degrees
below zero at sunrise. In fur caps, coats, mittens, and
double moccasins they brought home horseload after
horseload of juicy beef to hang in the winter storehouse.
And fortunately, too, for one day 'they awoke to find
the buffalo gone.
Some winters there was great suffering for food among
the Mandans, but this was destined to be a year of plenty.
Out of their abundance the chiefs, also, came to the fort
with their dog sleds loaded with meat for their friends at
the garrison.
THE FIRST DAKOTA CHRISTMAS
ON Christmas eve the stockade was finished and the
gate was shut. With forty-five men and a blunder
buss Fort Mandan stood impregnable to any force
the northern savages could bring against it.
But there was no hostility, — far from it. From curi
osity or for trade the Indians came in throngs, until on
Christmas eve Captain Lewis sent out the announce
ment : " Let no one visit us to-morrow. It is our great
medicine day."
Before daylight the wondering redmen were aroused
from their buffalo couches by three volleys fired from
the fort. Awe-struck they sat up and whispered : " White
THE FIRST DAKOTA CHRISTMAS 193
men making medicine." At sunrise a flag was floating
above the palisade, but no Indian ventured to approach
the mysterious newly closed walls of Fort Mandan.
For his Christmas stocking every man received an al
lowance of flour, dried apples, and pepper, which together
with corn, beans, squash, and unlimited buffalo meat and
marrow bones made out a Christmas feast.
At one o'clock the gun was fired for dinner. At two
came the signal for the dance.
" Play up ole fashion reel. Everybody he mus' dance,"
said Cruzatte, timing his fiddle. " We '11 do our possible."
Cruzatte and Gibson played, Gass and Shannon led,
Clark called the changes; and with crackling fires, and
a stamping like horses, away up there under the Northern
stars the first American Christmas was celebrated on the
upper Missouri.
Three wide-eyed spectators sat ranged around the
walls. These were the squaws of the interpreters, Ma
dame Rene Jussaume, and the two wives of Charboneau,
Madame the old dame, and Sacajawea, the beautiful In
dian captive stolen beyond the Rockies.
The Indians, in their cheerless winter villages, found
much to attract them at the fort of the white men. Soon
after Christmas, William Bratton and John Shields set
up their forge as blacksmiths, gunsmiths, and armourers.
Day after day, with the thermometer forty degrees be
low zero, a constant procession of Indians came wending
in on the well-beaten snow-track, with axes to grind and
kettles to mend. It seemed as if all the broken old kettles
that had ever drifted into the country, from Hudson's
Bay or Fort William or up from St. Louis, were carried
to Fort Mandan filled with corn to pay for mending.
Especially the Indians wanted battle-axes, with long
thin blades like the halberds of ancient warfare. Some
wanted pikes and spears fixed on the pointed ends of their
long dog-poles. A burnt-out old sheet-iron cooking stove
became worth its weight in gold. For every scrap of it,
four inches square, the Indians would give seven or eight
gallons of corn, and were delighted with the exchange.
These bits of square sheet iron were invaluable for
13
I94 THE CONQUEST
scrapers for hides, and every shred of cutting that fell to
the ground was eagerly bought up to fashion into arrow
tips. Metal, metal, metal, — the sine qua non of civili
sation had come at last to the Mandans.
While Bratton was busy over his forge, and Shields at
the guns, some of the men were out hunting, some were
cutting wood to keep the great fires roaring, and some
were making charcoal for the smithy.
So the days went on. New Year's, 1805, was ushered
in with the blunderbuss. By way of recreation the cap^
tains permitted the men to visit the Indian villages where
crowds gathered to see the white men dance, " heeling it
and toeing it " to the music of the fiddles. The white
men in turn were equally diverted by the grotesque figures
of the Indians leaping in the buffalo dances.
Captain Clark noted an old man in one of the Mandan
villages and gave him a knife.
" How old are you? "
" More than one hundred winters," was the answer.
" Give me something for the pain in my back."
But a grandson rebuked the old man. " It is n't worth
while. You have lived long enough. It is time for you
to go to your relations who can take better care of you
than we can."
The old man settled back in his robes by the fire and
said no more.
"What accident has happened to your hand? " inquired
Lewis of a chief's son.
" Grief for my relatives," answered the boy.
It was a Mandan custom to mutilate the body, as a
mark of sorrow for the dead, until some had lost not only
all their fingers, but their ears and hair. Sacred cere
monies of flagellations, knife thrusts into the flesh,
piercing with thorns and barbaric crucifixions, — thirty
years later George Catlin found these still among the
Mandans, and ascribed them to an effort to perpetuate
some Christian ceremonial of a remote ancestry.
Could it have been a corrupted tradition of the cruci
fixion of Christ? Who can tell? The Welsh of 1170
were Catholic Christians who believed in self-inflicted
THE FIRST DAKOTA CHRISTMAS 195
penance to save the soul. Degraded, misguided, inter-
blent with Indian superstition through generations, it
might have come to this.
But everywhere, at feast or council, one walked as con
queror, — Clark's negro servant, York. Of fine physical
presence and remarkable stature, very black and very
woolly, York was viewed as superhuman.
"Where you come from?" whispered the awe-struck
savages.
Grinning until every ivory tooth glistened, and rolling
up the whites of his eyes, he would answer, " I was run
ning wild in the wood, and was caught and tamed by my
mastah." Then assuming an air of ferocity, York would
exhibit feats of strength that to the Indians seemed really
terrible.
" If you kill white men we make you chief," the Ari-
karas whispered in his ear. York withstood great tempta
tion, — he fought more battles than Clark.
" Delay ! delay ! delay ! " was the Indian plea at every
village. "'Let our wives see you. Let our children see,
especially the black man."
From Council Bluffs to Clatsop, children followed
York constantly. If he chanced to turn, with piercing
shrieks they ran in terror.
"Mighty warrior. Born black. Great medicine!"
sagely commented the wise old men, watching him nar
rowly and shaking their heads at the unheard-of phenom
enon. Even his jerks, contortions, and grimaces seemed
a natural part of such a monstrosity. York was a per
petual exhibit, a menagerie in himself.
In these holiday visits to the Mandan towns a glimpse
was caught of domestic life. Wasteful profusion when
the buffalo came, when the buffalo left, days of famine.
Then they opened their cellar-holes of corn and vege
tables, hidden away as a last resource in protracted siege
when the Sioux drove off the game and shut them up in
their picketed villages.
So often were the horses of the Mandans stolen, that
it had become a habitual custom every night to take them
into the family lodge where they were fed on boughs and
196 THE CONQUEST
bark of the cottonwood. All day long in the iciest
weather, the wrinkled, prematurely aged squaws were
busy in the hollows, cutting the horse-feed with their
dull and almost useless knives. On New Year's day Black
Cat came down with a load of meat on his wife's back.
A happy woman was she to receive a sharp new knife to
cut her meat and cottonwood.
It was easy to buy a Mandan wife. A horse, a gun,
powder and ball for a year, five or six pounds of beads,
a handful of awls, the trade was made, and the new spouse
was set to digging laboriously with the shoulder-blade of
an elk or buffalo, preparing to plant her corn.
The Indian woman followed up the hunt, skinned and
dressed the buffalo, and carried home the meat. Indian
women built the lodges and took them down again, drag
ging the poles whenever there were not horses enough
for a summer ramble.
When not at the hunt or the council, the warrior sat
cross-legged at his door, carving a bow, pointing an
arrow, or smoking, waited upon by his squaw, who never
ate until the braves were done, and then came in at the
last with the children and the dogs. Wrinkled and old at
thirty, such was the fate of the Indian girl.
Sunday, January 13, Charboneau came back from a
visit to the Minnetarees at Turtle Mountain with his
face frozen. It was fortunate he returned with his life.
Many a Frenchman was slain on that road, many an
imprecation went up against the Assiniboine Sioux, -
" Les Gens des Grands Diables du Nord," said Char
boneau.
Touissant Charboneau, one of the old Canadian French
Charboneaus, with his brothers had tramped with Alex
ander Henry far to the north under sub-arctic forests,
wintered on the Assiniboine, and paddled to Winnipeg.
Seven years now he had lived among the Minnetarees, an
independent trader like McCracken and Jussaume, and
interpreter for other traders.
Moreover, Charboneau was a polygamist with several
wives to cook his food and carry his wood and water.
But he had been kind to the captive Indian girl, and her
THE FIRST DAKOTA CHRISTMAS 197
heart clung to the easy-going Frenchman as her best
friend. The worst white man was better than an Indian
husband.
Captured in battle as a child five years before, Saca-
jawea had been brought to the land of the Dakotas and
sold to Charboneau. Now barely sixteen, in that Feb
ruary at the Mandan fort she became a mother. Most of
the men were away on a great hunting trip; when they
came back a lusty little red-faced pappoose was screaming
beside the kitchen fire.
The men had walked thirty miles that day on the ice
and in snow to their knees, but utterly fatigued as they
were, the sight of that little Indian baby cuddled in a deer
skin robe brought back memories of home.
Clark came in with frosty beard, and moccasins all
worn out.
" Sacajawea has a fine boy," said Lewis.
No wonder the Captains watched her recovery with
interest. All winter they had sought an interpreter for
those far-away tongues beyond the mountains, and no
one could be found but Sacajawea, the wife of Char
boneau. Clark directed York to wait on her, stew her
fruit, and serve her tea, to the great jealousy of Jus-
saume's wife, who packed up her pappooses in high dud
geon and left the fort. Sacajawea was only a slave. She,
Madame Jussaume, was the daughter of a chief!
Poor little Sacajawea! She was really very ill.
If she died who would unlock the Gates of the
Mountains ?
Charboneau was a cook. He set himself to preparing
the daintiest soups and steaks, and soon the " Bird
Woman " was herself again, packing and planning for
the journey.
Busy every day now were Lewis and Clark making up
their reports and drawing a map of the country. Sha-
haka, Big White, came and helped them. Kagohami of
the Minnetarees came, and with a coal on a robe made a
sketch of the Missouri that Clark re-drew.
But in the midst of the map-making all the Indian
talk was of " war, war, war."
198 THE CONQUEST
" I am going to war against the Snakes in the Spring,"
said Kagohami.
" No," said Lewis, " that will displease the President.
He wants you to live at peace."
" Suffer me to go to war against the Sioux," begged
another chief.
" No," answered Lewis. " These wars are the cause
of all your troubles. If you do not stop it the Great
Father will withdraw his protection from you. He will
come over here and make you stop it."
" Look on the many nations whom war has de
stroyed," continued Lewis. " Think of your poverty and
misfortunes. If you wish to be happy, cultivate peace
and friendship. Then you will have horses. Then you
will grow strong."
"Have you spoken thus to all the tribes?" inquired
Kagohami.
" We have."
" And did they open their ears ? "
" They did."
" I have horses enough," reflected Kagohami, " I will
not go to war. I will advise my nation to remain at home
until we see whether the Snake Indians desire peace."
One night the hunters came in with the report, "A troop
of whooping Sioux have captured our horses and taken
our knives."
It was midnight, but Lewis immediately routed up the
men and set out with twenty volunteers on the track of
the marauding Sioux. In vain. The boasting free
booters had escaped with the horses beyond recovery.
:' We are sorry we did not kill the white men," was the
word sent back by an Arikara. " They are bad medicine.
We shall scalp the whole camp in the Spring."
THE BRITISH FUR TRADERS 199
XI
THE BRITISH FUR TRADERS
THE movements of Lewis and Clark were watched
by the Northwest Company, who already had
planned a house at the Mandans. Jefferson was
not an hour too soon.
" Yes," said Larocque, " I will pass the winter there
and watch those Americans."
In the midst of the frightful cold, twenty-two degrees
below zero, on December 16, 1804, Larocque and Mac
kenzie came over again from Fort Assiniboine and with
them came Alexander Henry.
" Strangers are among us," said the Indians, " Big
Knives from below. Had they been kind they would
have loaded their Great Boat with goods. As it is they
prefer throwing away their ammunition to sparing a
shot to the poor Mandans. There are only two sensible
men among them, the worker of iron and the mender of
guns."
" Amazing long pickets," remarked Larocque, as they
came in sight of the new stockade of Fort Mandan.
The triangular fort, two sides formed of houses and
the front of pickets, presented a formidable appearance
in the wild.
" Cannon-ball proof," remarked Larocque, taking a
good squint at the high round bastion in the corner be
tween the houses, defending two sides of the fort. On
the top was a sentry all night, and below a sentry walked
all day within the fort.
" Well guarded against surprise," remarked Alexander
Henry, as he tapped at the gate with the ramrod of his
gun.
As the party knocked at the gates of Fort Mandan, in
their winter coats of leather lined with flannel, edged
with fur, and double-breasted, the lively eye of Patrick
Gass peeped out.
200 THE CONQUEST
" Some more av thim Britishers to ascertain our mo
tives fur visitin' this countery, and to gain infurmation
with rispict to th' change o' gov'm't," was the shrewd
guess of Pat.
The hospitable Captains were more than glad to enter
tain visitors. They were there to cultivate international
amity.
In their hearts Lewis and Clark never dreamed what
a commotion that friendly letter to Chaboillez had stirred
up. It had gone far and awakened many. Immediately
upon its receipt Chaboillez sent out a runner.
" Lewis and Clark with one hundred and eighty sol
diers have arrived at the Mandan village," so the story
flew. " On their arrival they hoisted the American flag
and informed the natives that their object was not to
trade, but merely to explore the country; and that as
soon as navigation shall open they design to continue
their route across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific.
They have made the natives a few small presents and
repaired their guns and axes free. They have behaved
honourably toward my people, who are there to trade
with the natives."
Such a message as this was enough to bring Alexan
der Henry down to investigate. The cottonwood fires
at Fort Mandan roared up the chimneys with un
wonted splendour that winter night. The thermometer
suddenly fell to forty-five degrees below zero ; but warm
and comfortable beside the blaze they talked, American
and British, in this border of the nations.
Charles Mackenzie had been a clerk of the Northwest
Company for a year. Of the same rank as himself was
Larocque, and both were popular with the redmen. In
fact, Mackenzie, a Scot from the Highlands, was already
married to an Indian girl, and Larocque was a French
man. That was enough. No nation fraternized with
the redmen as the Frenchmen did.
Alexander Henry, fur trader among the American In
dians and one of the famous Northwesters, bore a great
name in the north. There were two Alexander Henrys ;
the younger was a nephew of the other, and he it was
THE BRITISH FUR TRADERS 201
that had now come to visit Lewis and Clark. He knew
more of the country than, perhaps, any other man in the
northwest. In fact, his uncle, the elder Henry, was at
Michilimackinac in the days of Pontiac, and had pene
trated to the Saskatchewan before ever there was a North
west Company.
Henry, Jr., wintered on the Red River the very year
that Alexander Mackenzie crossed the continent, — 1793-
As a bourgeois of the Northwesters, with a fleet of
canojes and twenty-one men he had led the Red River
brigade of 1800 up into the Winnipeg country.
The scarlet belts, breeches of smoked buckskin, and
blue cloth leggings of Alexander Henry's old coiireur
des bois were known for hundreds of miles.
Yes, he knew the Sioux. Their pillaging bands
sometimes plundered his traders. " They are not to be
trusted," he declared in positive tone.
" A very sensible, intelligent man/' said Lewis and
Clark to themselves as the great Northwester talked of
the country and the tribes.
But time seemed pressing. Questions of cold or of
comfort weighed not with these dauntless Northwesters
when the interests of their company were at stake. They
had come on horseback. To return that way was out of
the question ; and so sleds were fitted up with Jussaume's
Eskimo dogs, the " Huskies " of the fur traders.
' They seem happy to see us," remarked Mackenzie
from under his muffler, as they rode away. " They treat
us with civility and kindness, but Captain Lewis cannot
make himself agreeable. He speaks fluently, even
learnedly, but to me his inveterate prejudice against the
British stains all his eloquence."
" Captain Clark is more cordial," rejoined Larocque.
" He seems to dislike giving offence unnecessarily. Do
you recall his thoughtfulness in sending for our horses
when we feared they might be stolen? He let his men
guard them with his own."
With the thermometer thirty-two degrees below zero,
the dogsleds flew swift across the snow, bearing news
not alone to Assiniboine, but to Fort William on the
202 THE CONQUEST
northern shore of Lake Superior where the Northwest
ers had built their trading centre.
Fort William, built in 1803 and named in honour of
William McGillivray, was the great distributing point,
where " the lords of the lakes and the forests " came to
hold their rendezvous. In front rolled Superior, the
great Canadian Sea. Schooners, laden with merchan
dise, peltries, and provisions, plied between Fort William
and Sault Ste. Marie.
One of the honoured names of the Northwest Com
pany was Philip de Rocheblave. Captured by George
Rogers Clark at Kaskaskia, sent to Virginia and there
let out on parole, he broke faith and fled to New York,
to turn up at Montreal in the winter of 1783-4 along
with McTavish, McGillivray, the Frobishers and Frasers,
founders of the Northwest Fur Company. Pierre de
Rocheblave had now succeeded to his uncle's honours.
Would he be apt to let the United States get ahead of
him? And by means of a Clark at that?
" I must go down to the American fort to get my
compass put in order," said Larocque again, in January.
" The glass is broken and the needle does not point due
north."
He found Captain Clark sketching charts of the coun
try, Lewis making vocabularies; Jussaume and Char-
boneau, the Frenchmen, interpreting and disputing on
the meaning of words.
" They write down our words," whispered the suspi
cious Indians. " What wicked design have they on our
country? "
Captain Lewis spent a whole day fixing Larocque's
compass.
" I hardly get a skin when the Hudson's Bay trader
is with me," said Larocque. " He is known by all the In
dians, and understands and talks their language. I must
get Charboneau." And the two went away together.
"Of what use are beaver?" inquired the Indians.
" Do you make gunpowder of them? Do they preserve
you from sickness? Do they serve you beyond the
grave? "
THE BRITISH FUR TRADERS 203
Alexander Henry went to Fort William.
" A new rival has arisen," said the Northwest traders
at their hurried conference. " We must anticipate these
United States explorers and traders. They may advance
northward and establish a claim to ownership by prior
right of discovery or occupation. We must build a chain
of posts and hold the country."
" But whom can we send on such a monumental
enterprise? "
There seemed but one man, — Simon Fraser.
Simon Fraser was the son of a Scottish Tory who
had been captured by the Americans at Burgoyne's sur
render and had died in prison. His wife, with Simon a
babe in arms, removed to Canada, to rear her son be
neath the banner of her King. At sixteen, young Fraser
became a clerk of the Northwest Company and a bour
geois. But the Erasers were great-brained people;
young Simon was soon promoted ; and now at the age
of twenty-nine he was put in charge of the greatest
enterprise since the incomparable feat of Alexander
Mackenzie.
" You, Simon Fraser, are to establish trading-posts in
the unknown territory, and in this way take possession
for Great Britain."
Over at Sault Ste. Marie a young doctor by the name
of John McLoughlin would gladly have accompanied his
uncle Simon on that perilous undertaking. But his day
was to come later. Both of their names are now linked
with the Old Oregon.
Young men of the two most progressive modern na
tions were to be pitted in this race for Empire, — Lewis
and Clark, and Simon Fraser.
204 THE CONQUEST
XII
FAREWELL TO FORT MANDAN
ON the first day of March preparations began on
the building of new boats. The old ones were
pried out of the ice, and the whole party was busy
making elk-skin ropes and pirogues, in burning coal, and
in making battle-axes to trade for corn. Ducks began to
pass up the river ; swans and wild geese were flying north.
Old Chief Le Borgne of the Minnetarees, a giant in
stature, a brute at heart, had held aloof all winter in his
tepee.
" Foolish people! Stay at home! " he cried.
But strange rumours crept within the walls of the sulky
Cyclops. Overcome at last by curiosity Le Borgne came
down to the fort.
" Some foolish young men of my nation tell me there
is a man among you who is black. Is that true? "
" It is," answered Clark. " York, come here."
With his one fierce eye, Le Borgne examined York
closely. He wet his finger and rubbed the skin to see
if the black would come off. Not until the negro un
covered his head and showed his woolly hair could the
chief be persuaded that York was not a painted white
man.
Convinced against his will, and amazed, Le Borgne
arose with a snort, his black hair flying over his brawny
shoulders, and stalked out. As he passed along, the
Indians shrank back. Over the hill came the wail of a
demented mother. Many a fair Indian girl had left her
scalp at the door of this Indian Blue-Beard because she
preferred some other lover.
The ice was already honeycombed. Larocque came
over for a farewell.
" McTavish is dead," he said.
Lewis and Clark scarcely comprehended the full import
of that announcement,
FAREWELL TO FORT MANDAN 205
At the foot of the mountain in Montreal the great
Northwester was building a palace, fit abode for " the
lord of the lakes and the forest," when the summons came
in 1804. Up the rivers and lakes the word was carried
into the uttermost wilds, — " McTavish is dead." Thus
it came to Lewis and Clark, this last news from the outer
world.
The meeting at Fort William had been held without
him, — McTavish was dead.
He was the head and front of the Northwest Company.
Under the King, Simon McTavish ruled Canada, ruled
half of British America, making Hudson's Bay tremble
on her northern sea.
The quick wit of the American born of Irish par
ents belonged to Patrick Gass. While others were strug
gling toward an idea, Pat had already seized it. Brave,
observant, of good sense, and hating the British, he kept
an eye on Larocque.
" Do not trust that Frinchman."
Larocque had a stock of goods to trade. He lingered
around Fort Mandan, and offered to go over the moun
tains with Lewis and Clark, but they politely declined.
Already Larocque knew of the order at Fort William.
His own brother-in-law, Quesnel, was to be the com
panion of Fraser's voyage, and was to leave, like Fraser,
his name on the rivers of British Columbia.
Then there was trouble with Charboneau. He became
independent and impudent and demanded higher wages.
Somebody was tampering with Charboneau. Suddenly
flaming with new raiment, gay vests, and yards of blue
and scarlet cloth, he announced :
" I weel not work. I weel not stand guard. I eenter-
preteur, — do as I pleese, return wheen I pleese."
" We can dispense with your services," coolly answered
the Captains. Charboneau stepped back, surprised.
Ignoring his presence, preparations were hurried on.
The boats, the troublesome, cracking, warping cotton-
wood boats, were hauled to the fort and pitched and
calked and tinned, until at last they were ready to try the
water. No one spoke to the Frenchman, no one noticed
him as he lingered expectantly by.
206 THE CONQUEST
All the Indian goods were brought out and hung in
the open air. Even at the busiest moments, with every
man on the jump, no one asked Charboneau to help.
Finding he was about to lose his position, the Frenchman
came to Captain Lewis, apologised, and was restored to
service. In a trice Charboneau was back at the skillets,
dishing up the dinner.
The occupants of Fort Mandan had been snow-bound
five months when ice began running in the river. All
day long now the busy Indians were catching buffalo
floating by on the high water. The foolish animals, try
ing to cross the thin ice, broke through. Others floated
away on big cakes that were certain, sooner or later, to
launch them into eternity.
The patient, devoted women, too, were in evidence.
Slipping out of their leather smocks, they plunged naked
into the icy current to secure the floating driftwood for
fuel. Across the snow long lines of squaws came drag
ging home the drift.
The hammers of Shields and Bratton rang merrily at
the anvils. Boxes were made and hooped and ironed, to
go down in the big bateau that was too unwieldy to carry
further.
In those stout boxes were horns of the mountain ram,
unknown as yet to science, horns of elk and deer, rare
skins, robes and Indian dresses ; bow, arrows, and a
shield for the President, on which Old Black Cat had spent
months of patient carving; samples of the red Ankara
corn; sixty-seven specimens of earths, salts, and min
erals, and sixty specimens of plants, all carefully labelled ;
seeds, insects, the skeleton of the big fish from the hill
top, stuffed antelopes and Lewis's pelican, a live prairie
dog in a wicker cage, a live prairie hen and four magpies.
A new geography was there, a map of the Missouri ex
tending out to the mystic mountains, drawn from Indian
description, to be presented by Jefferson to Congress.
In these boxes, too, went letters. There was one
of several thousand words from Lewis to his mother.
Captain Clark's first and best letter was to his brother
at the Point of Rock; with it he enclosed a map and
FAREWELL TO FORT MANDAN 207
sketches of Indians. Another was to Major Croghan at
Locust Grove, with seeds of several kinds of grapes for
his sister Lucy.
With the bateau went also the famous Mandan report
of Lewis to Jefferson, and Clark's letter to his soldier
friend, William Henry Harrison, then Governor of the
Indian Territory at Vincennes. Other missives went to
Ohio, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Penn
sylvania, — wherever a man had a mother at the hearth
stone waiting to hear of her distant boy. Saddest of all
was the news to Mill Creek, the home of Sergeant Floyd.
Part of Clark's journal was transmitted by letter to the
President and part was enclosed in a separate tin box,
" to multiply the chances of saving something."
The Mandan treasures, with dispatches and presents
from the Indians, went down by water to the Gulf and
thence by sea to Washington.
" I have little doubt but they will be fired on by the
Sioux," says Lewis in his letter, " but they have pledged
themselves to us that they will not yield while there is
one of them living."
At five o'clock on Sunday afternoon, April 7, 1805, the
barge left Fort Mandan for St. Louis with ten men. With
it went also Brave Raven of the Arikaras, to visit his
Great Father, the President.
At the same moment that the barge left the fort, six
small canoes and the two pirogues shot up river, carrying
thirty-one men and Sacajawea with her child.
" This little fleet, although not quite so respectable as
those of Columbus or Captain Cook, is still viewed by us
with as much pleasure as those famed adventurers ever
beheld theirs," said Lewis, "and I dare say with quite
as much anxiety for their safety and preservation. We
are now about to penetrate a country at least two thousand
miles in width, on which the foot of civilised man has
never trodden.
" Entertaining as I do the most confident hope of suc
ceeding in a voyage which has formed a darling project
of mine for ten years, I can but esteem this moment of
our departure as among the happiest of my life."
208 THE CONQUEST
XIII
TOWARD THE SUNSET
THE Spring days were squally and chill. The air
was sharp, and the water froze on the oars as the
little party rowed along. Now and then a flurry
of snow whitened the April green. Sometimes the sails
were spread, and the boats scurried before the wind.
Often, however, the sails proved too large, and over the
boats lurched, wetting the baggage and powder.
Most of the powder had been sealed in leaden canis
ters. When the powder was emptied the canister itself
was melted into bullets. That was a nightly task, — the
moulding of bullets.
" Hio ! hio ! " The hunters ahead picked a camping
spot, beside a spring or by a clump of trees. In short
order brass kettles were swung across the gipsy poles.
Twisting a bunch of buffalo grass into a nest, in a
moment Dr. Saugrain's magical matches had kindled a
roaring flame.
Swinging axes made music where axes had never
swung before. Baby Touissant rolled his big eyes and
kicked and crowed in his mother's lap, while Charboneau,
head cook, stuffed his trapper's sausage with strips of
tenderloin and hung it in links around the blaze.
Stacks of buffalo meat lay near by, where they had
been piled by the industrious hunters. Odours of boil
ing meat issued from the kettles. Juicy brown ribs
snapped and crackled over the flames.
Captain Lewis, accustomed to the cuisine of Jefferson
at the White House, laughed.
" How did you dress this sausage so quick, Char
boneau? Two bobs and a flirt in the dirty Missouri?"
Sometimes Lewis himself turned cook, and made a
suet dumpling for every man. More frequently he was
off to the hills with Clark, taking a look at the country.
TOWARD THE SUNSET 209
Nor was Sacajawea idle. With her baby on her back,
she opened the nests of prairie mice, and brought home
artichokes. Sometimes she brought sprouts of wild onion
for the broth, or the pomme blanche, — the peppery In
dian turnip. York, too, at his master's direction often
gathered cresses and greens for the dinner. But York
was becoming a hunter. As well as the best, he " slew
dem buffaloes."
Lewis had bought Charboneau's big family tent. Under
its leather shelter slept the Captains, with Drouillard and
Charboneau and his little family.
Around the twilight fires the men wrote their journals,
- Lewis, Clark, Pryor, Ordway, Gass, Eraser, all busy
with their stub quill pens and inkhorns, recording the
day's adventure.
They were not scholars, any of them, but men of
action, pioneers and explorers, heralds of the nation. In
their strenuous boyhood they had defended the frontier.
Men at sixteen, they took up a man's employment.
Lewis, more favoured, prolonged his schooldays until
the age of eighteen, then broke away to march with
armies.
At last these first civilised sounds that ever broke the
silence primeval were hushed. Rolled up like cocoons
in their mackinaw blankets, the men were soon snoring
in rows with feet to the fires, while a solitary sergeant
peered into the lonely night. The high Dakota wind
roared among the cottonwoods. Mother Nature, too,
kept guard, lighting her distant beacons in the blue above
the soldier boys.
In a land of wolves, no wolves molested, though they
yelped and barked in the prairie grass. On all sides lay
deserted camps of Assiniboine Sioux. Once the expedi
tion crossed the trail of a war party only twenty-four
hours old. A dog left behind came to the camp of the
explorers and became the pet of Captain Lewis.
" Kip so quiet lak' one leetle mouse," whispered Cru-
zatte, cautioning silence.
No one cared to meet the Assiniboine Sioux, the
" Gens des Grands Diables" Once the smoke of their
210 THE CONQUEST
campfires clouded the north; but the boats sped on
undiscovered.
" The river reminds me of the Ohio at this time of
year," said Clark.
" The drumming of that sharp-tailed grouse is like
that of the pheasants of old Virginia," responded Lewis.
" And the croaking of the frogs exactly resimbles that
of frogs in th' Yaunited States," added Patrick Gass.
For days they noted veins of coal burning along the
river banks, kindled perhaps by Indian fires. Alkali dust
began to rise, blown into clouds, and sifting into their
tight double-cased watches until the wheels refused to
move more than a few minutes at a time.
Toward the last of April Lewis went ahead to the
mouth of the Roche jaune, the Yellow Rock, or Yellow
stone River, passing through herds of elk, antelope, and
buffalo, so tame they would scarce move out of his way.
Beautiful dun deer snorted and pawed the leaves, then
half trusting, half timorous, slipped into the thicket. No
one but Sacajawea had ever before been over this road.
In May they reached the land where even the beaver
were gentle, for they had never been hunted. No white
man, so far as they knew, had ever trodden these wilds.
They had not heard of the gallant Sieur Verendrye, two
of whose intrepid sons reached the " Shining Mountains "
on New Year's Day, 1743. Washington was a boy then;
George Rogers Clark was not born.
But the Snakes and the Sioux were at war, fierce bat
tles were raging, and they were forced to turn back.
The noble Verendrye spent all his fortune, and forty thou
sand livres besides, in trying to find the River of the West.
Then Jonathan Carver of Connecticut set out about
the time Boone went to Kentucky. At the Falls of St.
Anthony, he, too, heard of the Shining Mountains.
" The four most capital rivers of North America take
their rise about the centre of this continent," said Carver.
" The River Bourbon, which empties into Hudson's Bay;
the Waters of St. Lawrence; the Mississippi; and the
River Oregon, or the River of the West, that falls into
the Pacific Ocean at the Straits of Anian."
TOWARD THE SUNSET 211
What little bird whispered " Oregon " in Carver's
ear? No such word is known in any Indian tongue.
Had some Spanish sailor told of a shore " like his own
green Arragon " ?
And now Lewis and Clark are on the sunset path.
Will they find the Shining Mountains and the River of
the West?
At the first large branch beyond the Yellowstone, Cap
tain Lewis went on shore with Drouillard the hunter.
Out of a copse suddenly appeared two grizzlies.
Lewis remembered well the awe and absolute terror
with which the Mandans had described this king of
Western beasts. Never did they go out to meet him
without war-paint and all the solemn rites of battle. As
with the cave bear of ancient song and saga, no weapon
of theirs was adequate to meet this dreaded monster. In
parties of six or eight they went, with bows and arrows,
or, in recent years, the bad guns of the trader.
With these things in mind, Lewis and the hunter faced
the bears. Each fired, and each wounded his beast. One
of the bears ran away; the other turned and pursued
Captain Lewis, but a lucky third shot from Drouillard
laid him low.
And what a brute was he ! Only a cub and yet larger
than any bear of the Atlantic States, the grizzly, known
now to be identical with the awful cave bear of prehis
toric time. No wonder the Indian that slew him was a
brave and in the line of chieftainship! No wonder the
claws became a badge of honour! No man, no foe so
fierce to meet as one enraged and famished grizzly. His
skin was a king's robe, his tusk an emblem of unflinching
valour.
A wind from the east now filled the sails and blew
them west ! west ! More and more tame grew the elk and
buffalo, until the men were obliged to drive them out of
their way with sticks and stones.
Before them unrolled the great wild garden of
Eden. Abounding everywhere were meadows, — beaver
meadows and clover meadows, wild rice and rye and
timothy, and buffalo grazing on a thousand hills. Prairie
fowl scurried in the under-brush, beautiful white geese
212 THE CONQUEST
gazed calmly at them, ducks quacked around ponds and
streams alive with trout.
Wild gardens were radiant with roses and honey
suckles, morning-glories and wild hops. Whole fields
of lilies perfumed the sunrise, strawberries carpeted the
uplands, and tangles of blackberries and raspberries inter
wove a verdant wall along the buffalo trails, the highways
of the wilderness.
Mountain sheep sported on the cliffs, the wild cat
purred in her forest lair. The yellow cougar, the moun
tain lion, growled and slunk away. The coyote, the In
dian dog, snapped and snarled. But man, man was not
there. For four months no Indian appeared through
all the Great Lone Land of the Tay-a-be-shock-up, the
country of the mountains.
William Bratton, who had been walking along the
shore, presently came running to the boats with cries
of terror.
" Take me on board, quick ! "
It was some moments before Bratton could speak.
" A bear ! a bear ! " he gasped at last.
A mile and a half back Bratton had wounded a grizzly
that turned and chased him. Captain Lewis and seven
men immediately started. For a mile they tracked the
trail of blood to a hole where the enraged animal was
frantically tearing up the earth with teeth and claws.
Two shots through the skull finished the grizzly, whose
fleece and skin made a load which two men could scarcely
carry back to camp.
" More bear-butter to fry me sassage," remarked un
sentimental Charboneau.
But now had begun in earnest the days of wild adven
ture. One evening after another grizzly battle, the men
came triumphantly into camp to find disaster there.
Charboneau had been steersman that night, and Cruzatte
was at the bow. A sudden squall struck the foremost
pirogue, Charboneau let go the tiller, the wind bellied
the sail, and over they turned.
" De rudder ! de rudder ! " shouted Cruzatte.
Charboneau, the most timid waterman in the party,
TOWARD THE SUNSET 213
clinging to the gunwales, heard only his own voice in
the wind, crying aloud to heaven, " Mon Dieu! Mon
Dieu!"
" De rudder ! " roared Cruzatte. " Seize de rudder in-
stanter and do de duty, or I shoot you ! "
Fear of Cruzatte's gun overcame fear of drowning.
Charboneau, pallid and trembling, reached for the flying
rope. Half a minute the boat lay on the wave, then
turned up full of water.
At last, holding the brace of the square sail, Char
boneau pulled the boat round, while all hands fell to bail
ing out the water. But all the papers, medicine, and
instruments were wet.
Cruzatte alone was calm, and Sacajawea, who, with
her baby and herself to save, still managed to catch and
preserve most of the light articles that were floating
overboard.
Captain Lewis, watching the disaster from afar, had
almost leaped into the water to save his precious papers,
but was restrained by the reflection that by such rash
ness he might forfeit his life.
Two days were lost in unpacking and drying the stores.
At midnight a buffalo ran into the sleeping camp.
" Hey ! hey ! hey ! " shouted the guard, firing on the
run and waving his arms. But the distracted beast,
plunging close to the heads of the sleeping men, headed
directly toward the leather tent.
Suddenly up before his nose danced the little Indian
dog, and the buffalo was turned back into the night just
as the whole camp jumped to arms in expectation of an
attack of the Sioux.
"Fire! Fire!" was the next alarm.
In the high wind of the night one of the fires had
communicated itself to a dead cotton wood overhang
ing the camp. Fanned by the gale the flames shot up
the trunk, and burning limbs and twigs flew in a shower
upon the leather tent.
" Fire ! fire ! fire ! " again came the quick, sharp cry.
Every man rolled out of his mackinaw. The occu
pants of the lodge were soon aroused. Strong hands
214 THE CONQUEST
had scarcely removed the lodge and quenched the burn
ing leather before the tree itself fell directly over the
spot where a moment before the Captains were sleeping
soundly.
And so that stream was named the Burnt Lodge Creek.
XIV
THE SHINING MOUNTAINS
ASCENDING the highest summit of the hills on the
north side of the river, on Sunday, the 26th of
May, Captain Lewis first caught a distant view of
" the Rock mountains — the object of all our hopes, and
the reward of all our ambition."
" When I viewed — I felt a secret pleasure, — but
when I reflected on the difficulties which this snowy
barrier would most probably throw in my way to the
Pacific, and the sufferings and hardships of myself and
party in them, it in some measure counterbalanced the
joy."
Bold and bolder grew the river shores. The current
now became too rapid for oars, too deep for poles. Noth
ing but the tow-line could draw the boats against the swift
flow of the mountain torrent. Struggling along shore
with the rope on their shoulders, the men lost their moc
casins in the clinging clay and went barefoot. Sometimes
knee-deep, they waded, sometimes waist-deep, shoulders-
deep, in the icy water, or rising on higher benches walked
on flinty rocks that cut their naked feet.
Leaping out of the mountains, came down a laughing
sparkling river, the clearest they had yet seen. Its valley
seemed a paradise of ash and willow, honeysuckles and
wild roses. Standing on its bank Clark mused, " I know
but one other spot so beautiful. I will name this river
for my little mountain maid of Fincastle, the Judith."
Could he then foresee that Judith would become his
THE SHINING MOUNTAINS 215
wife, or that the verdant Judith Basin would be the last
retreat of the buffalo?
Big horned mountain sheep were sporting on the cliffs,
beaver built their dams along its shores, and up the Judith
Gap the buffalo had his mountain home. The Indian, too,
had left there the scattered embers of a hundred fires.
Lewis picked up a moccasin.
" Here, Sacajawea, does this belong to your people? "
The Bird Woman shook her head. " No Shoshone."
She pointed to the north where the terrible Blackfeet
came swooping down to shoot and scalp. It was time to
hasten on.
Valley succeeded valley for miles on miles, and between
valleys arose hills of sandstone, worn by suns and storms
into temples of desolated magnificence; ruins of columns
and towers, pedestals and capitals, parapets of statuary,
sculptured alcoves and mysterious galleries. Sheer up
from the river's side they lifted their heads like old Vene
tian palaces abandoned to the bats.
June 3 the river forked.
" Which is the true Missouri? "
" De nort'ern branch. See it boil and roll?" said
Cruzatte. " See de colour ? Dat de true Meessouri. De
ot'er ees but one leetle stream from de mountain."
But the Captains remembered the advice of the
Minnetarees.
" The Ah-mateah-za becomes clear, and has a navigable
current into the mountains."
Parties were sent up both branches to reconnoitre.
Lewis and Clark ascended the high ground in the fork
and looked toward the sunset. Innumerable herds of
buffalo, elk, and antelope were browsing as far as the eye
could reach, until the rivers were lost in the plain.
Back came the canoes undecided. Then the Captains
set out. Clark took the crystal pebbly southern route.
Lewis went up the turbid northern branch fifty-nine
miles.
" This leads too far north, almost to the Saskatche
wan," he concluded, and turned back. In the summer
sunshine robins sang, turtle doves, linnets, the brown
216 THE CONQUEST
thrush, the goldfinch, and the wren, filled the air with
melody.
" I will call it Maria's River, for my beautiful and ami
able cousin, Maria Wood of Charlottesville," thought
Lewis, with a memory of other Junes in old Virginia.
When Lewis drew up at camp, Clark was already there,
anxious for his safety. The main party, occupied in
dressing skins and resting their lame and swollen feet,
looked eagerly for the decision. To their surprise both
Captains agreed on the southern route.
" But Cruzatte," exclaimed the men, " he thinks the
north stream is the true river, and Cruzatte is an ex
perienced waterman. We may be lost in the mountains
far from the Columbia."
" True. Everything depends on a right decision. Cap
tain Clark, if you will stay here and direct the deposit
of whatever we can spare, I will go ahead until I know
absolutely."
At dawn Lewis set out with Drouillard, Gibson, Good
rich, and Joe Fields.
Under Captain Clark's direction, Bratton, the black
smith, set up his forge at the mouth of Maria's River and
Shields mended all the broken guns. The rest dug a
cache, a kettle-shaped cellar, on a dry spot safe from
water. The floor was covered with dry sticks and a robe.
Then in went the blacksmith's heavy tools, canisters of
powder, bags of flour and baggage, — whatever could be
spared. On top was thrown another robe, and then the
earth packed in tight and the sod refitted so that no eye
could detect the spot.
The red pirogue was drawn up into the middle of a
small island at the mouth of Maria's River and secured
in a copse.
" Boys, I am very ill," said Captain Lewis, when they
camped for dinner on the first day out. Attacked with
violent pains and a high fever, unable to proceed, he lay
under some willow boughs.
No medicine had been brought. Drouillard was much
concerned. " I well remember," he said, " when a flux
was epidemic at Chillicothe among de white settlers, my
THE SHINING MOUNTAINS 217
fader, Pierre Drouillard, administer on de sick wit' great
success."
"What did he use?"
" A tea of de choke-cherry."
" Prepare me some," said the rapidly sinking Captain.
With deft fingers Drouillard stripped off the leaves of
a choke-cherry bough. and cut up the twigs. Black and
bitter, the tea was brought to Lewis at sunset. He drank
a pint, and another pint an hour afterward. By ten
o'clock the pain was gone, a gentle perspiration ensued,
the fever abated, and by morning he was able to
proceed.
The next day, June 12, the mountains loomed as never
before, rising range on range until the distant peaks com
mingled with the clouds. Twenty-four hours later Lewis
heard the roaring of a cataract, seven miles away, and
saw its spray, a column of cloud lifted by the southwest
wind. Like Hiawatha he had —
" Journeyed westward, westward,
Left the fleetest deer behind him,
Left the antelope and bison,
Passed the mountains of the Prairie,
Passed the land of Crows and Foxes,
Passed the dwellings of the Blackfeet,
Came unto the Rocky Mountains,
To the kingdom of the West-Wind."
Hastening on with impatient step he came upon the
stupendous waterfall, one of the glories of our continent,
that hidden here in the wilderness had for ages leaped
adown the rocky way. Overwhelmed with the spectacle
Lewis sat down " to gaze and wonder and adore." " Oh,
for the pencil of Salvator Rosa or the pen of Thompson,
that I might give to the world some idea of this magnifi
cent object, which from the commencement of time has
been concealed from the view of civilised man."
Joe Fields was immediately dispatched to notify Clark
of the discovery of the Falls. Lewis and the other men
went on up ten miles, gazing at cataract after cataract
where the mighty Missouri bent and paused, and gather
ing its full volume leaped from rock to rock, sometimes
218 THE CONQUEST
wild and irregularly sublime, again smooth and elegant
as a painter's dream.
Lewis, impatient to see and know, hurried on past the
rest until night overtook him alone near the head of the
series of cataracts. On the high plain along the bank a
thousand buffalo were feeding on the short curly grass.
Lewis shot one for supper, and leaning upon his unloaded
rifle watched to see it fall.
A slight rustle attracted his attention. He turned. A
bear was stealing upon him, not twenty steps away.
There was no time for reloading, flight alone remained.
Not a bush, not a tree, not a rock was near, nothing but
the water. With a wild bound Lewis cleared the inter
vening space and leaped into the river. Turning, he
presented his espontoon. The bear, already at the bank,
was about to spring, but that defiant espontoon in his face
filled him with terror. He turned and ran, looking back
now and then as if fearing pursuit, and disappeared.
Clambering out of the water, Lewis started for camp,
when, sixty paces in front of him, a strange animal
crouched as if to spring. Lewis fired and a mountain lion
fled. Within three hundred yards of the spot, three en
raged buffalo bulls left the herd, and shaking their shaggy
manes, ran pawing and bellowing, full speed upon him.
Eluding the bulls, Lewis hurried to camp. Worn out,
he fell asleep, only to awaken and find a huge rattlesnake
coiled around the tree above his head ! Such was earth
primeval !
The Great Falls of the Missouri was the rendezvous
for all wild life in the country. Thousands of impatient
buffaloes pushed each other along the steep rocky paths
to the water. Hundreds went over the cataract to feed
the bears and wolves below.
Captain Clark soon arrived with the. main body and
went into camp at a sulphur spring, a favourite resort of
buffaloes.
" This is precisely like Bowyer's sulphur spring of
Virginia, — it will be good for Sacajawea," said Lewis,
bringing her a -cup of the transparent water that tumbled
in a cascade into the Missouri.
THE SHINING MOUNTAINS 219
Sacajawea was sick, very sick, delirious at times as she
lay on her couch of skins. The journey had been diffi
cult. The hungry little baby was a great burden, and
Sacajawea was only sixteen, younger even than Shannon,
the boy of the party.
Clark directed his negro servant, York, to be her con
stant attendant. Charboneau was cautioned on no ac
count to leave her. Several other semi-invalids guarded
the tent to keep the buffaloes away. Every day, and twice
a day, the Captains came to see her and prescribe as best
they could.
Now came the tedious days of portaging the boats and
baggage around the Falls. A cottonwood tree, nearly
two feet in diameter, was sawed into wheels. The white
pirogue was hidden in a copse and its mast was taken for
an axletree.
Opposite the spot where the waggons were made was
an island full of bears of enormous size. Their growling
and stealthy movements went on day and night. All
night the watchful little dog kept up incessant barking.
The men, disturbed in their slumbers, lay half-awake
with their arms in hand, while the guard patrolled with
an eye on the island. Bolder and bolder grew the bears.
One night they came to the very edge of the camp and ran
off with the meat hung out for breakfast.
At last the rude waggons were done. The canoes were
mounted and filled with baggage. Slowly they creaked
away, tugged and pushed and pulled up hills that were
rocky and rough with hummocks where the buffaloes
trod. Prickly-pears, like little scythes, cut and lacerated,
even through double-soled moccasins. At every halt,
over-wearied and worn out by night watching, the toilers
dropped to the ground and fell asleep instantly.
A whole month was spent in making the carriages and
transporting the baggage the eighteen miles around the
Falls. In another cache at the sulphur spring, they
buried Lewis's writing desk, specimens of plants and min
erals, provisions, the grindstone brought from Harper's
Ferry, books and a map of the Missouri River. The
blunderbuss was hid under rocks at the foot of the Falls,
220 THE CONQUEST
Sacajawea, recovered from her illness, began to look
for familiar landmarks. One day Clark took her, to
gether with Charboneau and York, to look at the Falls.
He had surveyed and measured the Black Eagle, Crooked
Rainbow, and Great Falls. " Come," he said, " Char
boneau, bring Sacajawea. Let us go up and look at
the Black Eagle." High above the cataract the bird
had built its nest in the top of a cottonwood tree.
A dark cloud was rising. Under a shelving rock they
took refuge in a ravine, Captain Clark still figuring at
his notes.
A few drops of rain fell, — in an instant a torrent, a
cloud-burst, rolled down the ravine.
Clark saw it coming. Snatching his gun and shot-
pouch, he pushed Sacajawea and the baby up the cliff,
while Charboneau above was pulling her by the hand.
Up to Clark's waist the water came. Fifteen feet it rose
behind him as he climbed to safety.
Compass and umbrella were lost in the scramble.
Charboneau had left his gun, tomahawk, and shot-pouch.
Sacajawea had just snatched her baby before its cradle
went into the flood. After the storm they came down
into the plain, to. find York in affright lest they had been
swept into the river.
On account of the great heat} the men at the waggons
had laid aside their leather hunting shirts, when down
upon their bare backs came a showrer of huge hail
stones. Bruised, battered, and bleeding as from a battle,
they straggled into camp. Kind-hearted Lewis set to
work with linens and medicine, bandaging up their
wounds.
The next morning Captain Clark sent two men to look
for the articles lost at the Falls. They found the ravine
filled with rock, but happily, half-hid in mud and sand,
the precious compass was recovered.
Within view of the camp that day Clark estimated not
less than ten thousand buffalo. And beyond, rimmed
on the far horizon, ran the white line of the mountain
crest that is to-day the western boundary of Montana.
The 4th of July dawned, the second since they had
A WOMAN PILOT 221
left the States. In the hills they heard strange booming,
as of a distant cannonade. It almost seemed as if the
Rocky Mountains were reverberating back the joyous
guns of Baltimore and Boston". The men listened in
amaze.
"What can it be?"
" Een de mountain/' answered Cruzatte. " De vein
of silver burst. De Pawnee and de Rickara hear eet een
de Black Hill."
" Ah, yes, the Minnetarees talked of a noise in the
mountains. We thought it was superstition."
Again through long silence came the great cannonade.
Unconsciously Lewis and Clark trod on closed treasure
houses, future mines of unwashed tons of gold and silver.
Had they brought back gold then what might have been
the effect upon the restless, heaving East? But, no, the
land must wait and grow. Other wars must be fought
with the Englishman and the Indian, armies of trappers
must decimate the bears and wolves, and easier methods
of transportation must aid in opening up the great
Montana-land.
XV
A WOMAN PILOT
MONDAY, July 15, 1805, the boats were launched
above the Great Falls of the Missouri. Clark
followed by land along an old Indian trail, worn
deep by the lodge-poles of ages.
Little did he realise that nuggets lay scattered all over
that land, where yet the gold hunters should dot the hills
with shafts and mounds ; that near here a beautiful city,
named for Helen of Troy, should arise to become a
golden capital.
" My people! My people!" Sacajawea excitedly
pointed to deserted wickiups and traces of fires. She
read their story at a glance.
222 THE CONQUEST
" It was winter. They were hungry. There were no
buffalo. See!" She pointed to the pines stripped of
bark and the tender inner wood, the last resort of fam
ishing Shoshones.
With flags hoisted to notify the Indians that they were
friends, the canoes passed within the Gates of the Moun
tains, where the mighty Missouri breaks through the Belt
Range of western Montana. Nothing in Alleghany lands
compares with this tremendous water-gap. Through the
dark cavern the river ran narrow and rapid and clear.
Down through tributary canyons on either side came
rifts of light, odours of pine, and the roar of waterfalls.
With unmoved countenance Sacajawea looked upon
the weird overhanging grayish granite walls through
which she had been hurried in terror by her Minnetaree
captors, five years ago.
" We are coming to a country where the river has
three forks," said Sacajawea.
Exhilaration seized the men, as they sent the boats
up the heavy current that rolled well-deep below. That
night they camped in a canyon that is to-day a pleasure
resort for the people of Helena.
Again following the Indian trail, on the 25th of July
Clark arrived at the three forks of the Missouri, near the
present site of Gallatin. From the forks of the far eastern
rivers where Pittsburg rises, they had come to the forks
of the great river of the West.
For days the swift current had required the utmost
exertion. The men complained of fatigue and excessive
heat.
" You push a tolerable good pole," said the Ken-
tuckians, when Lewis took a hand.
Captain Clark was worn out. With the thermometer
at ninety, for days he had pushed ahead, determined to
find the Shoshones.
" Let us rest a day or two," said Captain Lewis.
" Here, boys, build a bower for Captain Clark. I '11
take a tramp myself in a few days to find these yellow
gentlemen if possible."
Camping at the three forks, every man became a
A WOMAN PILOT 223
leather dresser and tailor, fixing up his buckskin clothes.
Leggings and moccasins had been sliced to pieces by the
prickly pear.
"What a spot for a trading post!" the Captains
agreed.
" Look," said Lewis, " see the rushes in the bottom,
high as a man's breast and thick as wheat. This will be
much in favour of an establishment here, — the cane is
one of the best winter pastures for cows and horses."
From the heights at the three forks, Lewis and Clark
looked out upon valleys of perennial green. Birds of
beautiful plumage and thrilling song appeared on every
hand. Beaver, otter, muskrat, sported in this trapper's
paradise. Buffalo-clover, sunflowers and wild rye, buf
falo-peas and buffalo-beans blossomed everywhere.
All the Indian trails in the country seemed to converge.
at this point. Here passed the deadly Blackfoot on his
raids against the Shoshones, the Bannocks, and the Crows.
Here stole back and forth the timid Shoshone to his an
nual hunt on the Yellowstone and the Snake River plains.
Hither from time immemorial had the Flatheads and
Nez Perces resorted for their supplies of robes and meat.
Even from the far Saskatchewan came the Piegans and
Gros Ventres to this favoured and disputed spot.
The Blackfeet claimed the three forks of the Missouri,
no tribe dwelt there permanently. The roads w,ere deep, •
like trenches, worn by the trailing lodgepoles of many
tribes upon this common hunting ground.
The naming of the rivers, — that was an epic by itself.
The gay Cabinet ladies who had fitted him out at Wash
ington flitted through the mind of Meriwether Lewis, —
Maria Jefferson, companion of his earliest recollection,
Dolly Madison, whose interest never failed in his adven
tures, Mrs. Gallatin, the queenly dark-haired wife of the
scholarly Secretary of the Treasury. With what pleas
ure had they gathered at the White House to fashion
" housewives," full of pins and needles and skeins of
thread, for these wanderers of the West. Not a man in
the party but bore some souvenir of their thoughtful
handiwork.
224 THE CONQUEST
Clark's earliest memory was of Jefferson, the friend
of his father, of his older brothers, and then of him
self. " Jimmy " Madison and George Rogers Clark had
been schoolmates in the " old field school " of Donald
Robertson.
So then and there the Captains agreed that three great
statesmen and their wives should be commemorated here
by the Madison, the Jefferson, and the Gallatin forks of
the Missouri.
" On this very spot my people camped five years ago.
Here were their tents," said Sacajawea, pointing out the
embers of blackened fires. " The Minnetarees peered
over the hills. We ran up this fork and hid in the thick
woods."
The boats were reloaded and the party began to ascend
the Jefferson on July 30, to its head in the Bitter Root
Mountains. At noon they camped for dinner.
" And here was I captured ! " cried Sacajawea. " I
was made a prisoner. We were too few to fight the
Minnetarees. They pursued us. Our men mounted
their horses and fled to the mountains. The women
and children hid. I ran. I was crossing this river.
They caught me and carried me away."
What a realistic glimpse of daily terror! Fighting,
hunting, wandering, famishing, in the land of anarchy.
Formerly the Shoshones were Indians of the plains.
Now they had been driven by their enemies into almost
inaccessible fastnesses.
" The Beaver Head! The Beaver Head! "
Sacajawea pointed to a steep, rocky cliff shaped like a
beaver's head, one hundred and fifty feet above the water,
an Indian landmark from time immemorial.
" This is not far from the summer retreat of my coun
trymen. We shall meet them soon, on a river beyond the
mountains running to the west."
" We must meet those Indians," said Lewis, " it is
our only hope for horses to cross the mountains."
Lewis and Clark camped August 7, 1805, at Beaver-
head Rock. There, fifty-seven years later, chased by
bears, robbed by Indians, unsheltered, unshod, and al-
A WOMAN PILOT 225
most starving, the gold hunter stumbled upon the aurif
erous bed of an ancient river that made Montana. Gold
was discovered at Alder Gulch in 1863, ten miles south
of Beaverhead Rock, and the next year mining began in
the streets of the present city of Helena. The pick and
the shovel in the miner's hand became the lamp and the
ring in the grasp of Aladdin.
The next morning after passing Beaverhead Rock,
Captain Lewis and three of the men slung their knap
sacks over their shoulders and set out for the mountains,
determined not to return until they met some nation of
Indians.
Two days later, August n, Lewis with his spyglass
espied a lone horseman on the hills. The wild-eyed Sho-
shone, accustomed to scan the horizon, saw him also.
" He is of a different nation from any we have met,"
remarked Lewis, watching intently through his glass.
" He has a bow and a quiver of arrows, and an elegant
horse without a saddle."
Like a lookout on the hills, the Indian stood and
waited.
" He is undoubtedly a Shoshone. Much of our suc
cess depends on the friendly offices of that nation."
Slowly Lewis advanced. Slowly the Indian came for
ward, until, within a mile of each other the Indian sud
denly stopped. Captain Lewis also stopped, and drawing
a three-point blanket from his knapsack held it by the
corners above his head, and unfolding brought it to the
ground as in the act of spreading. Three times he re
peated the Indian signal of hospitality — " Come and sit
on the robe with me."
Still the Indian kept his position, viewing with an air
of suspicion the hunters with Lewis.
" Tabba bone, tabba bone," said Lewis, stripping up
the sleeve of his shirt to show the colour of his skin, —
" white man, white man," a term learned of Sacajawea.
Paralysed the Indian looked, then fled like a frightened
deer. No calls could bring him back.
He said to his people, " I have seen men with faces
pale as ashes, who are makers of thunder and lightning."
15
226 THE CONQUEST
" He is a dreamer ! " exclaimed the incredulous Sho-
shones. " He makes up tales. He must show us these
white men or be put to death," and trembling he started
back with a body of warriors.
Lewis, disappointed at the flight of the Shoshone,
pressed on. Narrower and narrower grew the river.
" Thank God, I have lived to bestride the Missouri! "
exclaimed Hugh McNeil, planting a foot on either side
of the mountain rivulet.
Two miles farther up they drank from the ice-cold
spring at the river's source, and stood on the summit of
the Great Divide. A little creek flowed down the ridge
toward the west. Stooping, they drank, — of the waters
of the Columbia, and slept that night in Idaho. The next
morning, following a well-worn Indian trail, Lewis came
upon two women and a child. One fled, the other, an old
dame encumbered by the child, sat down and bowed her
head as if expecting instant death.
Captain Lewis advanced, lifted her, loaded her with
gifts.
'' Tabba bone, tabba bone." Stripping up his sleeve
he showed to the amazed woman the first white skin she
had ever seen.
" Call your companion," motioned Lewis toward the
fleeing woman.
The old dame raised her voice. As fast as she ran
away the young woman came running back, almost out
of breath. She, too, was loaded with trinkets, and the
cheeks of all were painted with vermilion, the Shoshone
emblem of peace.
Without fear now she led him toward sixty mounted
warriors, who were advancing at a gallop as to battle.
" Tabba bone! tabba bone! " explained the women, in
troducing the stranger and exhibiting their gifts.
" Ah hi el Ah hi e!" — "I am much pleased ! I am
much pleased ! " exclaimed the warriors, leaping from
their horses and embracing Lewis with great cordiality.
Lewis drew forth his imposing calumet of red pipe-
stone and lighted it. This was a sign language of all
tribes.
A WOMAN PILOT 227
Putting off their moccasins as if to say, " May I walk
the forest barefoot forever if I break this pledge of
friendship," they sat down and smoked.
The chief, too, brought out a pipe, of the dense trans
parent green stone of the Bannock Mountains, highly
polished. Another led him to a lodge and presented a
piece of salmon, — then Lewis no longer doubted that
he was on waters flowing to the Pacific.
Slowly, Clark, ill with chills and fever, had been com
ing forward, urging the canoes up the difficult and nar
rowing stream.
Sacajawea, the little Bird-woman, could not wait. In
her anxiety she begged to walk ahead along shore, and
with her husband went dancing up the rivulet of her
childhood. She flew ahead. She turned, pirouetting
lightly on her beaded moccasins, waving her arms and
kissing her fingers. Her long hair flew in the wind and
her beaded necklace sparkled.
Yes, there were the Indians, and Lewis among
them, dressed like an Indian too. The white men
had given everything they had to the Indians, even
their cocked hats and red feathers, and taken Indian
clothes in exchange, robes of the mountain sheep and
goat.
An Indian girl leaned to look at Sacajawea. They
flew into each other's arms. They had been children to
gether, had been captured in the same battle, had shared
the same captivity. One had escaped to her own people ;
the other had been sold as a slave in the Land of the
Dakotahs. As girls will, with arms around each other
they wandered off and talked and talked of the wonder
ful fortune that had come to Sacajawea, the wife of a
white man.
A council was immediately called. The Shoshones
spread white robes and hung wampum shells of pearl in
the hair of the white men.
" Sacajawea. Bring her hither," called Lewis.
Tripping lightly into the willow lodge, Sacajawea was
beginning to interpret, when lifting her eyes to the chief,
she recognised her own brother, Cameahwait. She ran
228 THE CONQUEST
to his side, threw her blanket over his head, and wept
upon his bosom.
Sacajawea, too, was a Princess, come home now to
her Mountain Kingdom.
XVI
IDAHO
" "V IT TE are going through your country to the far
^Vr ocean," said Captain Lewis. " We are mak-
* V ing a trail for the traders who will bring you
guns."
1 This delights me," answered Cameahwait, with his
fierce eyes, and his lank jaws grown meagre for want of
food. :' We are driven into the mountains, when if we
had guns we could meet our enemies in the plains."
All the Shoshone talk was of war, war, war. Their
great terror was the roving Indians of the Saskatchewan,
who, with guns from the British traders, came down like
wolves on the fold. Only flight and wonderful skill with
the bow and arrow saved the Shoshones from destruction.
Horses were their wealth. " Most of them would make
a figure on the south side of James River," said Lewis,
" in the land of fine horses. I saw several with Spanish
brands upon them."
Brother to the Comanche, the Shoshone rode his horse
over rocks and ravines, up declivitous ways and almost im
possible passes. Every warrior had one or two tied to a
stake near his willow hut, night and day, ready for action.
" My horse is my friend. He knows my voice. He
hears me speak. He warns me of the enemy." Little
children played with them, squaws fed them, braves
painted them and decorated their manes and tails with
eagle-plumes, insignia of the Rocky Mountain Indian.
Such horses were a boon to Lewis and Clark, for they were
tractable, sure-footed, inured to the saddle and the pack.
IDAHO 229
A Shoshone found a tomahawk that Lewis had lost in
the grass, and returned it, — now a tomahawk was worth
a hundred dollars to a Shoshone. They had no knives
or hatchets, — all their wood was split with a wedge of
elkhorn and a mallet of stone. They started their fires
by twirling two dry sticks together.
Through all the valleys the Shoshones sent for their
best horses, to trade for knives and tomahawks. De
lighted they watched the fall of deer before the guns of
white men. The age of stone had met the age of steel.
How to get over the mountains was the daily consul
tation. Cameahwait pointed out an old man that knew
the rivers. Clark engaged him for a guide:
" You shall be called Toby. Be ready to-morrow
morning."
Proud of his new name, old Toby packed up his
moccasins.
The Indians drew maps : " Seven days over sheer
mountains. No game, no fish, nothing but roots."
Captain Clark set out to reconnoitre the Salmon River
route.
" A river of high rocks," said Cameahwait, " all a
river of foam. No man or horse can cross. No man
can walk along the shore. We never travel that way."
Nevertheless Clark went on.
For seventy miles, " through mountains almost in
accessible, and subsisting on berries the greater part of
the route," as Clark afterward told . his brother, they
pushed their way, then — " troubles just begun," re
marked old Toby.
Checking their horses on the edge of a precipice, Clark
and his companions looked down on the foaming Snake,
roaring and fretting and lashing the walls of its inky
canyon a hundred feet below, savage, tremendous,
frightful.
As Cameahwait had said, the way was utterly im
practicable.
" I name this great branch of the Columbia for my
comrade, Captain Lewis," said Clark.
Back from the Snake River, Clark found Lewis buying
230 THE CONQUEST
horses. The Shoshone women were mending the men's
moccasins. The explorers were making pack-saddles of
rawhide. For boards they broke up boxes and used the
handles of their oars.
" I have ever held this expedition in equal estimation
with my own existence," said Lewis, urging on the prep
arations. " If Indians can pass these mountains, we can."
Haunched around the fires, the forlorn Indians looked
and listened and shook their unkempt heads.
" Me know better route," said the friendly old Sho
shone guide. " To the north, another great water to
the Columbia."
"No! no! no!" shouted all the Shoshones. "No
trail that way."
But Clark believed the faithful old Toby. Evidently
the Shoshones wished to detain them all winter.
Unseen by the Indians, at night a cache was dug at the
head of the Jefferson, for the last of the heavy luggage,
leaving out only Indian gifts and absolute necessities to
carry on the pack-horses. The canoes were filled with
rocks and sunk to the bottom of the river.
August 30, the expedition was ready. Before setting
out the violins were brought and the men danced, to the
great diversion of the Indians. Then, when they turned
their faces to the Bitter Root, with the old guide and his
four sons, the Shoshones set out east for their annual
hunt on the Missouri.
From May to September the Shoshones lived on salmon
that came up the mountain streams. Now that the
salmon were gone, necessity compelled them forth. With
swift dashes down the Missouri they were wont to kill
and dry what buffalo they could, and retreat to consume
it in their mountain fastnesses. The whites had surprised
them in their very citadel — led by Sacajawea.
Along the difficult Bitter Root Mountains Lewis and
Clark journeyed, meeting now and then Indian women
digging yamp and pounding sunflower seeds into meal.
Food grew scarce and scarcer, now and then a deer, a
grouse, or a belated salmon stranded in some mountain
pool. Sometimes they had but a bit of parched corn in
IDAHO 231
their wallets, like the Immortals that marched to the
conquest of Illinois.
But those snowy peaks that from a distance seemed so
vast, — that like the Alps defied approach to any but a
Hannibal or a Napoleon — now, as if to meet their con
querors, bent low in many a grassy glade.
In a pocket of the mountains now called Ross' Hole,
they came upon a camp of Flatheads, with five hundred
horses, on their way to the Missouri for the Fall hunt of
buffalo.
Unknown to them the Flatheads had been watching
from the timber and had reported : " Strangers. Two
chiefs riding ahead, looking at the country. One warrior
painted black. The rest leading packhorses. Keep quiet.
Wait. They are coming."
York's feet had become lame and he was riding with
the Captains.
When the white men came in view the Flatheads looked
on their faces. They were shocked at the whiteness.
Compassion was in every Indian heart.
" These men have no blankets. They have been robbed.
See how cold their cheeks are. They are chilled. Bring
robes. Build fires."
All the Indians ran for their beautiful white robes, and
wrapped them around the shoulders of the white men.
Before the blazing fires the white men's cheeks grew red.
Perspiration burst from every pore. The robes slipped
off, but the solicitous red men kept putting them back and
stirring up the fire.
Then the Captains, touched to the heart, spoke to the
kind-hearted Flatheads of a great people toward the
rising sun, strong and brave and rich.
"Have they wigwams and much buffalo?" inquired
the Flatheads.
" Yes. We have been sent by the Great Father, the
President, to bring these presents to his children the
Flatheads."
The childlike Flatheads were much impressed. Never
did they forget the visit of those first white men. Tradi
tions enough to fill a book have been handed down, and to
232 THE CONQUEST
this day they boast, " the Flathead never killed a white
man."
The whites listened in amaze to the low guttural cluck
ing of the Flatheads, resembling that of a chicken or
parrot. Voice there was none, only a soft crooning to
their gentle chatter, interpreted by Sacajawea and the
old Shoshone guide.
The women crowded around Sacajawea and untied her
baby from its elkskin cradle. They fed it and gave it little
garments. That baby was an open sesame touching the
hearts of all. Sacajawea, riding on her horse to the
Columbia, found friends with every tribe. Others might
pay ; she, never. The Indian mother-heart opened to Sac
ajawea. Her very presence was an assurance of pacific
intention.
The women brought food, roots, and berries. To a late
hour the white men continued smoking and conversing
with the chiefs, when more robes were brought, and the
weary ones slept with their feet to the fire.
' Those hongry Injin dorgs ate up me moccasins lasht
noight," complained Pat in the morning. " But they 're
the whoitest Injins I iver saw."
More horses were brought and the lame ones ex
changed, so now with forty horses and three colts the
Captains and their devoted followers struggled on, " Over
the warst road I iver saw," said Pat. " Faith ! 't is
warse nor the Alleghanies where I rid whin a bye."
One horse loaded with a desk and small trunk ro!1ed
down a steep declivity until it was stopped by a tree. The
desk was broken. That night they camped at the snow
line and more snow began to fall. Wet, cold, hungry,
they killed a colt for supper and slept under the stars.
The horses were failing. Some had to be abandoned.
One rolled down a mountain into a creek at the bottom.
Some strayed or lost their packs, and the worn-out men,
ever on the jump, came toiling through the brush, bearing
on their own backs the unwieldy pack-saddles. Up here
in the Bitter Root Mountains, the last of Dr. Saugrain's
thermometers was broken, which accounts for the fact
that from this point on they kept no record of temperature.
IDAHO 233
September 9 the expedition journeyed down the main
Bitter Root valley, named Clark's River, and crossing it
came to a large creek and camped a day to rest their
horses.
''Traveller's Rist, is it?" said Pat. " Me fa-a-ther's
inn at Wellsburg was the fir-r-st ' Traveller's Rist ' in
all Wistern Varginny," and Traveller's Rest it remained
until some later explorer renamed it the Lolo fork of the
Bitter Root River.
Here the boys mended their garments torn and tattered
in the mountains, and the hunters went out for game.
They returned with three Flatheads.
"Ay! Ay!" clucked the gentle Flatheads, "the river
goes to the great lake. Our relations were there and
bought handkerchiefs like these of an old white man that
lives by himself."
Lame and weary, straight across Idaho they struggled,
over seams and streaks of precious metal that they saw
not, the gold of Ophir concealed in the rocky chambers
of the Idaho Alps, — struggled into the Lolo trail used
by the Indians for ages before any whites ever came into
the country.
Over the Lolo trail went the Nez Perces to battle and to
hunt buffalo in the Montana country. Down over this
trail once came a war party and captured Wat-ku-ese, a
Nez Perce girl, and carried her away to the distant land
of white men, — so-yap-po, " the crowned ones," she
called them, because they wore hats.
Still ever Wat-ku-ese dreamed of her Nez Perce home
and one day escaped with her infant on her back. Along
the way white traders were kind to her. On and on, foot
sore and weary she journeyed alone. In the Flathead
country her baby died and was buried there. One day
some Nez Perces came down over the Lolo trail bringing
home Wat-ku-ese, weak, sick, dying.
She was with her people at their camas ground, We-
ippe, when Lewis and Clark came down over the Lolo
trail.
" Let us kill them," whispered the frightened Nez
Perces.
234 THE CONQUEST
Wat-ku-ese lay dying in her tent when she heard
it. " White men, did you say? No, no, do not harm
them. They are the crowned ones who \vere so good to
me. Do not be afraid of them. Go near to them."
Cautiously the Nez Perces approached. The explorers
shook their hands. This was to the Indians a new form
of greeting.
Everywhere Indian women were digging the camas
root, round like an onion, and little heaps lay piled here
and there. They paused in their work to watch the
strangers. Some screamed and ran and hid. Little girls
hid their baby brothers in the brush. Others brought
food.
So starved and famished were the men that they ate
inordinately of the sweet camas and the kouse, the biscuit
root. The sudden change to a warmer climate and laxa
tive roots resulted in sickness, when the expedition might
have been easily attacked but for those words of Wat-ku-
ese, who now lay dead in her tent.
To this day the Nez Perces rehearse the story of Wat-
ku-ese. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship
with the whites, broken only when Chief Joseph fled over
the Lolo trail. But even Chief Joseph found he must give
up the vast areas over which he was wont to roam, and
come under the laws of civilised life.
As fast as their weakness permitted councils were
held, when the Captains told the Nez Perces of the Great
Father at Washington, who had sent them to visit his
children.
Twisted Hair, the Nez Perce Tewat, a great medicine
man, dreamer and wizard and wise one, drew on a white
elkskin a chart of the rivers. Admiring redmen put
their hands over their mouths in amazement.
No one but Twisted Hair could do such things. He
was a learned Indian, knew all the trails, even to the Falls
of the Columbia.
" White men," said he, " live at the Tim-tim [falls]."
Thus into Idaho had penetrated the story of Ko-na-pe,
the wrecked Spaniard, who with his son Soto had set out
up the great river to find white people and tarried there
DOWN THE COLUMBIA 235
until he died. Seven years later Aster's people met Soto,
an old man dark as his Indian mother, but still the Indians
called him white. Twenty years later Soto's daughter
was still living on the Columbia in the days of the Hud
son's Bay Company.
To save time and trouble, canoes were burnt out of logs.
Leaving their horses with the Nez Perces, on October 4
the explorers were glad to get into their boats with their
baggage and float down the clear Kooskooske, into the
yellow-green Snake, and on into the blue Columbia.
At the confluence of the rivers medals were given and
councils held on the present site of Lewiston. Day by
day through wild, romantic scenes where white man's
foot had never trod, the exultant young men were gliding
to the sea.
Ahead of the boats ' on horseback galloped We-ark-
koompt, an Indian express. Word flew. The tribes were
watching. At the dinner camp, October 16, five Indians
came up the river on foot in great haste, took a look and
started back, running as fast as they could.
That night Lewis and Clark were met at the Colum
bia by a procession of two hundred Indians with
drums, singing, " Ke-hai, ke-hai," the redmen's signal
of friendship.
XVII
DOWN THE COLUMBIA
THE arrival at the Columbia was followed by days
of councils, with gifts and speeches and smoking.
Two Nez Perce chiefs, Twisted Hair the Tewat
and Tetoh, introduced the explorers from tribe to tribe,
bearing on and on the good words of Wat-ku-ese : "They
are crowned ones. Do not be afraid. Go near to them."
All the Indian world seemed camped on the Columbia.
Everywhere and everywhere were " inconceivable multi-
236 THE CONQUEST
tudes of salmon." They could be seen twenty feet deep
in the water, they lay on the surface, and floated ashore.
Hundreds of Indians were splitting and spreading them
on scaffolds to dry. The inhabitants ate salmon, slept
on salmon, burnt dried salmon to cook salmon.
With a coal a Yakima chief drew on a robe a map of
the river so valuable that Clark afterwards transferred it
to paper. That map on the robe was carried home to
Jefferson and hung up by him in Monticello. Every trail
was marked by moccasin tracks, every village by a clus
ter of teepees.
In the " high countrey " of the Walla Walla they
caught sight of " the Mt. Hood of Vancouver," and
were eager to reach it.
"Tarry with us," begged Yellept, the Walla Walla
chief.
" When we return," replied the eager men. Then
Clark climbed a cliff two hundred feet above the water
and spied St. Helens. Very well Clark remembered Lord
St. Helens from whom this peak was named. The very
name to him was linked with those old days when " De
troit must be taken," for Lord St. Helens and John Jay
drew up the treaty that evacuated Detroit.
Captain Clark and a few of the men still continued in
advance walking along the shore.
Near the beautiful Umatilla a white crane rose over
the Columbia. Clark fired. A village of Indians heard
the report and marvelled at the sudden descent of the
bird. As with outspread, fluttering wings it touched
the ground the white men came into view.
One moment of transfixed horror, and the Indians
fled. Captain Clark promptly followed, opened the mat
doors of their huts and entered. With bowed heads,
weeping and wringing their hands, a crowd of men.
women, and children awaited the blow of death.
Lifting their chins, Clark smiled upon them and offered
gifts. Evidently they had not met the Indian express.
" All tribes know the peace-pipe," he remarked, and
drawing forth his pipestone calumet lit it, as was his
wont, with a sunglass.
DOWN THE COLUMBIA 237
As the fire kindled from the rays through the open
roof, again the people shrieked. In vain Drouillard tried
to pacify them. Not one would touch the pipe lit by the
sun. Clark went out and sat on a rock and smoked until
the boats arrived.
" Do not be afraid. Go to them," began the Nez Perce
chiefs.
" They are not men," hurriedly whispered the fright
ened Indians. '' We saw them fall from heaven with
great thunder. They bring fire from the sky."
Not until Sacajawea landed with her baby was tran
quillity restored.
" No squaw travels with a war party," that must
be admitted, and soon they were smoking with great
unanimity.
" Tim-m-m-m ; — tim-m-m-m ! " hummed the Indians
at the Falls, at Celilo, poetically imitating the sound of
falling waters.
There was salmon at the Falls of the Columbia, stacks
of salmon dried, pounded, packed in baskets, salmon
heaped in bales, stored in huts and cached in cellars in
the sand. Making a portage around the Falls, the boats
slid down.
" De rapide! de rapide! before we spik some prayer
we come on de beeg rock ! " screamed Cruzatte, the
bowman.
Apparently a black wall stretched across the river, but
as they neared, a rift appeared where the mighty chan
nel of the Columbia narrows to forty-five yards at the
Dalles. Crowds of Indians gathered as Clark and Cru
zatte stopped to examine the pass.
" By good steering ! " said Cruzatte. Shaping up his
canoe, it darted through the hissing and curling waters
like a racehorse.
Close behind, the other boats shot the boiling caldron,
to the great astonishment of Indian villagers watching
from above.
At the Warm Springs Reservation there are Indians
yet who remember the old dip-net fishing days and the
stories of " Billy Chinook," who then saw York, the
238 THE CONQUEST
black man. " I was a boy of twelve. When the black
man turned and looked at us, we children fled behind the
rocks."
Here at the Dalles were wooden houses, the first that
Lewis and Clark had seen since leaving the Illinois coun
try, with roofs, doors, and gables like frontier cabins, —
and still more stacks of salmon. "Ten thousand pounds,"
said Clark, " dried, baled, and bound for traffic down the
river."
The ancient Indian village of Wishram stands on that
spot still, with the same strong smell of salmon. The
houses are much the same, and among their treasures
may be found a coin of 1801, bartered, no doubt, by
Lewis and Clark for a bale of salmon.
On sped the boats, through mighty mountains, past
ancient burial places of the savage dead, to the wild-
rushing Cascades. Past these Cascades, five miles of
continuous rapids, white with sheets of foam. " We
mak' portage," said Cruzatte, his bow grating on the
narrow shelf of shore.
On either side, rocky palisades, " green-mossed and
dripping," reached the skies. Tiny waterfalls, leaping
from the clouds, fell in rainbow mist a thousand feet
below. " Mt. Hood stood white and vast."
Below the Cascades great numbers of hair-seals slept
on the rocks. Swarms of swans, geese, ducks, cranes,
storks, white gulls, cormorants, plover swept screaming
by. The hills were green, the soft west wind was warm
with rain.
" What a wild delight
Of space ! of room ! What a sense of seas ! "
They had come into a new world, — the valley of the
lower Columbia, the home of the Chinook wind.
At Hood River alarmed Indians, dressed in skins of
the mountain goat, the Oregon mazama, peered after
the passing white men. At every house, and among
mouldering remains of ancient tombs, lay scattered in
numerable images of wood and stone or of burnt clay,
household gods of the Columbian Indian.
DOWN THE COLUMBIA 239
Flat and flatter grew the heads. Up in the Bitter
Root, women alone wore this badge of distinction. Here,
every infant lay strapped like a mummy with a padded
board across its forehead.
A new sort of boats now glided alongside the flotilla,
great sea canoes manned with Chinook paddles. They
were long and light, tapering at the ends, wide in the
middle and lifting stern and prow into beaks like a
Roman galley. And every canoe was laden with salmon,
going down river to trade for beads and wapato.
Traces of white men began to appear, — blue and scar
let blankets, brass tea-kettles, and beads. One Indian,
with a round hat and a sailor- jacket, wore his hair in a
queue in imitation of the " Bostons."
" I trade with Mr. Haley," said one in good English,
showing the bow of iron and other goods that Mr. Haley
had given him. " And this is his squaw in the canoe."
More and more fertile and delightful grew the coun
try, shaded by thick groves of tall timber and watered by
streams, fair as lay unpeopled Kentucky thirty years be
fore. Scarce could Clark repress the recollection of the
tales his brother brought home of that first trip to Boons-
boro in 1775.
Nothing surprised them more than the tropic luxuri
ance of vegetation. The moist Japan wind nurtured the
trees to mammoths, six, eight, and ten feet through.
Shrubbery like the hazel grew to be trees. The maple
spread its leaves like palm fans ; dogwood of magnolian
beauty, wild cherry, crab-apple, interlaced with Oregon
grape, blackberries, wild roses, vines of every sort and
description, and ferns, ferns, ferns filled the canyons like
the jungles of Orinoco.
On November 4, nearly opposite the present Van
couver, they landed at a village on the left side of the
river where a fleet of over fifty canoes was drawn up on
shore, gathering wapato.
"Wapato? Wapato?" An Indian treated them to
the queen root of the Columbia, round and white, about
the size of a small Irish potato. This, baked, was the
bread of the Chinook Indian.
240 THE CONQUEST
" In two days," said Indians in sailor jackets and
trousers, shirts, and hats, " in two days, two ships, white
people in them."
" Village there," said an Indian in a magnificent
canoe, pointing beyond some islands at the mouth of the
Willamette. He was finely dressed and wore a round
hat.
Yes, it might be, villages, villages everywhere, but
ships — ships below ! They had no time for villages
now. Long into the darkness of night the boats sped
on, on, past dim forests bending to the wave, past
shadowy heights receding into sunset, past campfires on
the hills where naked Indians walked between them and
the light.
At a late hour they camped. November rains were
setting in, the night was noisy with wild fowl coming
up the Columbia to escape the storms of ocean. Trum
peter swans blew their shrill clarions, and whistling
swans, geese, and other birds in flights of hundreds
swept past in noisy serenade, dropping from their wings
the spray of the sea.
None slept. Toward morning the rain began.
In a wet morning and a rushing wind they bent to the
oar, past St. Helens, past Mt. Coffin, past Cathlamet
where Queen Sally in scant garments watched from a
rock and told the tale in after years.
" We had been watching for days," she said. " News
had come by Indian post of the strangers from the east.
They came in the afternoon and were met by our canoes
and brought to the village." " There," Clark says in his
journals, " we dined on November 26."
But Lewis and Clark were tired of Indians by this
time, and moreover, ships were waiting below ! It was
a moment of intense excitement. Even at Cathlamet
they heard the surge of ocean rolline on the rocks fortv
miles away. Before night the fog lifted and they beheld
"the ocean! — that ocean, the obiect of all our labours,
the reward of all our anxieties. Ocean in view ! O ! the
joy."
Struggling with their unwieldy canoes the landsmen
DOWN THE COLUMBIA 241
grew seasick in the rising swells of the up-river tide.
For miles they could not find a place to camp, so wild
and rocky were the shores.
At last, exhausted, they threw their mats on the beauti
ful pebbly beach and slept in the rain.
Everything was wet, soaked through, bedding, stores,
clothing. And all the salt was spoiled. There was noth
ing to eat but raw dried salmon, wet with sea water, and
many of the men began to be ill from exposure and im
proper food.
" 'T is the divil's own weather," said Pat, coming in
from a reconnoitre with his wet hunting shirt glued fast
to his skin. Pat could see the " waves loike small moun
tains rolling out in the ocean," but just now he, like all
the rest, preferred a dry corner by a chimney fire.
" Une Grande Piqnique ! " exclaimed Cruzatte.
" Lak' tender de ocean roar !
Blow lak' noting I never see,
Blow lak' le diable makin' grande tour !
Hear de win' on de beeg pine tree ! "
And all were hungry. Even Clark, who claimed to
be indifferent as to what he ate, caught himself ponder
ing on bread and buns. With the peculiar half laugh of
the squaw, Sacajawea brought a morsel that she had
saved for the child all the way from the Mandan towns,
but now it was wet and beginning to sour. Clark took
it and remarked in his journal, " This bread I ate with
great satisfaction, it being the only mouthful I had tasted
for several months."
Chinook Indians pilfered around the camp. " If any
one of your nation steals anything from us, I will have
you shot," said Captain Clark, — "which thev understand
very well," he remarked to the camp as the troublers
slunk away. A sentinel stood on constant watch.
Captain Lewis and eleven of the men went around the
bay and found where white people had been camped all
summer, but naught remained save the cold white beach
and the Indians camping there. The ships had sailed.
Down there near the Chinook town, facing the ocean.
16
242 THE CONQUEST
Captain Lewis branded a tree with his name and the
date, and a few days later Captain Clark says, " I marked
my name on a large pine tree immediately on the isthmus,
at Clatsop."
It was two hundred years since Captain John Smith
sailed up the Chickahominy in Virginia in search of the
South Sea. At last, far beyond the Chickahominy, Lewis
and Clark sailed up the Missouri and down the Columbia
in search of the same South Sea. And here at the mouth
of the Oregon they found it, stretching away to China.
Balboa, Magellan, Cortez, Mackenzie, — Lewis and
Clark had joined the immortals.
XVIII
FORT CLATSOP BY THE SEA
DECEMBER had now arrived, and southwest
storms broke upon the coast with tremendous
force. Off Cape Disappointment, the surges
dashed to the height of the masthead of a ship, with
most terrific roaring. A winter encampment could no
longer be delayed.
" Deer, elk, good skin, good meat," said the Chinook
Indians, in pantomime, pointing across the bay to the
south.
Accordingly, thither the eggshell boats were guided,
across the tempestuous Columbia, to the little river
Netul, now the Lewis and Clark, ten miles from the
ocean.
Beside a spring branch, in a thick grove of lofty firs
about two hundred yards from the water, the leather
tent was set up and big fires built, while all hands fell
to clearing a space for the winter cabins.
In four days the logs were rolled up, Boonsboro
fashion, into shelters for the winter. " The foinest
puncheons I iver saw," said Patrick Gass, head carpen-
FORT CLATSOP BY THE SEA 243
ter, as he set to splitting boards out of the surrounding
firs.
By Christmas seven cabins were covered and the floors
laid. The chinks were filled with clay, and fir-log fires
were set roaring in the capacious chimneys that filled an
entire end of each cabin. On Christmas day they moved
in, wet blankets and all, with rounds of firearms and
Christmas salutes.
The leather tent, soaked for days, fell to pieces. The
heavy canisters of powder, every one of which had been
under the water in many a recent capsize, were con
signed in safety to the powder-house.
On New Year's Eve the palisades were done, and the
gates were closed at sunset.
The first winter-home of civilised people on the Co
lumbia has an abiding charm, not unlike that of Plymouth
or Jamestown.
Back through the mists of one hundred years we see
gangs of elk, chased by hunters through cranberry bogs,
" that shook for the space of half an acre."
Their soundless footfalls were lost in beds of brown
pine needles and cushions of moss. The firing of guns
reverberated through the dim gloom like a piece of
ordnance.
It was from such a trip as this that the hunters re
turned on the 1 6th of December, reporting elk. All
hands set to work carrying up the meat from the loaded
boats, skinning and cutting and hanging it up in small
pieces in the meathouse, to be smoked by a slow bark
fire. But in spite of every precaution, the meat began
to spoil.
:< We must have salt," said Captain Lewis.
In a few days, five men were dispatched with five
kettles to build a cairn for the manufacture of salt from
seawater.
Already Clark had examined the coast with this in
view, and the salt-makers' camp was established near
Tillamook Head, about fifteen miles southwest of the
fort where the old cairn stands to this day. Here the
men built " a neat, close camp, convenient to wood, salt
244 THE CONQUEST
water and the fresh waters of the Clatsop River, within
a hundred paces of the ocean," and kept the kettles boiling
day and night.
On that trip to the coast, while the cabins were build
ing, Captain Clark visited the Clatsops, and purchased
some rude household furniture, cranberries, mats, and
the skin of a panther, seven feet from tip to tip, to cover
their puncheon floor.
Other utensils were easily fashioned. Seated on
puncheon stools, before the log-fire of the winter night,
the men carved cedar cups, spoons, plates, and dreamed
of homes across the continent.
In just such a little log cabin as this, Shannon saw
his mother in Ohio woods ; Patrick Gass pictured his
father, with his pipe, at Wellsburg, West Virginia;
Sergeant Ordway crossed again the familiar threshold
at Hebron, New Hampshire. Clark recalled Mulberry
Hill, and Lewis, — his mind was fixed on Charlottes-
ville, or the walls expanded into Monticello and the
White House.
" Mak' some pleasurement now," begged the French
men, " w'en Bonhomme Cruzatte tune up hees fidelle
for de dance."
Tales were told and plans were made. Toward mid
night these Sinbads of the forest fell asleep, on their
beds of fir boughs, lulled by the brook, the whispering
of the pines, and the falling of the winter rain.
This was not like winter rain in eastern climates, but
soft and warm as April. The grass grew green, Spring
flowers opened in December. The moist Japan wind
gives Oregon the temperature of England.
" I most sincerely regret the loss of my thermometer,"
said Lewis. " I am confident this climate is much milder
than the same latitude on the Atlantic. I never experi
enced so warm a winter."
But about the last of Januarv there came a snow at
Clatsop, four inches thick, and icicles hung from the
houses during the day.
" A real touch of winter," said Lewis. " The breath
is perceptible in our room by the fire." Like all Ore-
FORT CLATSOP BY THE SEA 245
gon snow it disappeared in a week — and then it was
Spring.
In the centre of the officer's cabin, a fir stump, sawed
off smooth and flat for a table, was covered with maps
and papers. Books were written in that winter of 1805-6,
voluminous records of Oregon plants and trees, birds,
beasts, and fishes. They had named rivers and measured
mountains, and after wandering more than Homer's
heroes, the explorers were ready now to carry a new
geography to the States. And here, as everywhere,
Lewis was busy with his vocabularies, learning the Chi
nook jargon.
As never before, all the men became scientists. Even
Captain Clark's black man took an interest and reported
some fabulous finds.
The houses were dry and comfortable, and within,
they had a plentiful supply of elk and salt, " excellent,
white, and fine, but not so strong as the rock salt, or that
made in Kentucky."
Meal time was always interesting. Very often the
Captains caught themselves asking : " Charboneau, when
will dinner be ready? "
All day the firelight flickered on Sacajawea's hair, as
she sat making moccasins, crooning a song in her soft
Indian monotone. This was, perhaps, the happiest winter
Sacajawea ever knew, with baby Touissant toddling
around her on the puncheon floor, pulling her shawl
around his chubby face, or tumbling over his own cradle.
The modest Shoshone princess never dreamed how the
presence of her child and herself gave a touch of domes
ticity to that Oregon winter.
Now and then Indian women came to see Sacajawea, sit
ting all day without a word, watching her every motion.
Sometimes Sacajawea helped Charboneau, with his
spits, turning slowly before the fire, or with his elk's
tongues or sausage or beaver's tails. Sometimes she
made trapper's butter, boiling up the marrow of the shank
bones with a sprinkle of salt.
In the short days darkness came on at four o'clock,
and the last of the candles were soon exhausted. Then
246 THE CONQUEST
the moulds were brought and candles were made of elk
tallow, until a heap, shining and white, were ready for
the winter evenings.
" We have had trouble enough with those thieving
Chinooks," said Captain Lewis. " Without a special
permit, they are to be excluded from the fort."
The Indians heard it. Did a knock resound at the
gate, " No Chinook ! " was the quick accompaniment.
" Who, then ? " demanded the sentinel, gun in hand.
" Clatsop," answered Coboway's people entering with
roots and cranberries.
Or, " Cathlamets," answered an up-river tribe with
rush bags of wapato on their backs. Roots of the edible
thistle — white and crisp as a carrot, sweet as sugar,
the roasted root of the fern, resembling the dough of
wheat, and roots of licorice, varied the monotonous fare.
These supplies were very welcome, but the purchase
money, that was the problem.
President Jefferson had given to Captain Lewis an un
limited letter of credit on the United States, but such a
letter would not buy from these Indians even a bushel
of wapato.
The Cathlamets would trade for fishhooks. The Clat-
sops preferred beads, knives, or an old file.
No wonder they valued an old file: the finest work of
their beautiful canoes was often done with a chisel fash
ioned from an old file. Lewis and Clark had frequent
occasion to admire their skill in managing these little
boats, often out-riding the waves in the most tumultu
ous seas.
Ashore, these canoe-Indians waddled and rolled like
tipsy sailors. Afloat, straight and trim as horse-Indians
of the prairie, each deft Chinook glided to his seat along
the unrocking boats, and striking up the paddlers' " Ho-
ha-ho-ha-ho-ha- " went rowing all their lives, until their
arms grew long and strong, their legs shrunk short and
crooked, and their heads became abnormally intelligent.
Nor were these coast Indians lacking in courage, —
they sometimes ventured into the sea in their wonderful
canoes, and harpooned the great whale and towed him in.
FORT CLATSOP BY THE SEA 247
When it came to prices for their beautiful skins of sea-
otter, almost nothing would do. Clark offered a watch,
a handkerchief, an American dollar, and a bunch of red
beads for a single skin.
" No ! No ! " in stentorian tone — " Tyee ka-mo-suck ,
— chief beads," — the most common sort of large blue
glass beads, the precious money of that country. Chiefs
hung them on their bosoms, squaws bound them on their
ankles, pretty maidens hung them in their hair. But
Lewis and Clark had only a few and must reserve them
for most pressing necessity.
Since that May morning when Captain Robert Gray
discovered the Columbia River, fourteen years before,
the Chinook Indians had learned the value of furs.
Once they handed over their skins, and took without a
murmur what the Boston skippers chose to give. Now,
a hundred ships upon that shore had taught them craft.
One of old King Comcomly's people had a robe of sea-
otter, " the fur of which was the most beautiful we had
ever seen." In vain Lewis offered everything he had,
nothing would purchase the treasured cloak but the belt
of blue beads worn by Sacajawea.
On every hand among these coast tribes were blankets,
sailor-clothes, guns, — old Revolutionary muskets mended
for this trade, — powder and ball, the powder in little
japanned tin flasks in which the traders sold it.
In what Clark calls " a guggling kind of language
spoken mostly through the throat," with much panto
mime and some English, conversation was carried on.
" Who are these traders? " asked Captain Lewis.
Old Comcomly, King of the Chinooks, on the north
side, and Tyee Coboway, Chief of the Clatsops, on the
south bank of the Columbia, tried to remember, and
counted on their fingers, —
" Haley, three masts, stays some time," " Tallamon
not a trader," " Callalamet has a wooden leg," " David
son, no trader, hunts elk," " Skelley, long time ago, only
one eye."
And then there were " Youens, Swipton, Mackey,
Washington, Mesship, Jackson, Balch," all traders with
248 THE CONQUEST
three-masted ships whose names are not identified by
any Atlantic list.
The one translated Washington by Lewis and Clark
may have been Ockington of the Belle Savage, 1801, or
Tawnington, both of whom are known to have been on
the coast in those years.
In fact, no complete record was ever kept of the ships
that swarmed around the Horn and up the Pacific, in
those infant years; of our republic, 1787 to 1820. While
Europe clustered around the theatre of Napoleonic wars,
every harbour of New England had its fur ships and
whalers out, flying the Stars and Stripes around the
world.
" What do they say?" inquired Lewis, still pressing
investigation. Proud of their acquirements, every Chi
nook and Clatsop in the nation could recall some word
or phrase.
" Musket, powder, shot, knife, file, heave the lead,
damned rascal ! "
No wonder Lewis and Clark laughed, these mother
words on the savage tongue were like voices out of the
very deep, calling from the ships.
" One hyas tyee ship — great chief ship — Moore, four
masts, three cows on board."
" Which way did he go?"
The Indians pantomimed along the northwest coast.
" From which," says Lewis, " I infer there must be
settlements in that direction."
The great desire, almost necessity, now, seemed to be
to wait until some ship appeared upon the shore from
which to replenish their almost exhausted stores.
Whenever the boats went in and out of Meriwether
Bay they passed the Memeloose Illahee, the dead country
of the Clatsops. Before 1800, as near as Lewis and
Clark could ascertain, several hundred of the Clatsops
died suddenly of a disease that appeared to be smallpox,
the same undoubtedly that cut down Black Bird and his
Omahas, rolling on west and north where the Hudson's
Bay traders traced it to the borders of the Arctic.
In Haley's Bay one hundred canoes in one place be-
A WHALE ASHORE 249
spoke the decimation of the Chinooks, all slumbering
now in that almost priceless carved coffin, the Chinook
canoe, with gifts around them and feet to the sunset,
ready to drift on an unknown voyage.
There was a time when Indian campfires stretched
from Walla Walla to the sea, when fortifications were
erected, and when Indian flint factories supplied the
weapons of countless warriors. But they are gone. The
first settlers found sloughs and bayous lined with burial
canoes, until the dead were more than the living. No
Indians knew whose bones they were, " those old, old,
old people." Red children and white tumbled them out
of the cedar coffins and carried away the dead men's
treasures.
' There was mourning along the rivers. A quietness
came over the land." Stone hammers, flint chips, and
arrows lie under the forests, and embers of fires two cen
turies old.
The native tribes were disappearing before the white
man came, and the destruction of property with the dead
kept the survivors always impoverished.
XIX
A WHALE ASHORE
" 4 WHALE ! a whale ashore ! "
h-\ When Chief Coboway brought word there
-*• -*-was great excitement at Fort Clatsop. Every
body wanted to see the whale, but few could go. Captain
Clark appointed twelve men to be ready at daylight.
Sacajawea, in the privacy of her own room that Sunday
evening, spoke to Charboneau. Now Charboneau wanted
her to stay and attend to the " 1'Apalois " — roasting
meats on a stick, — and knowing that the child would
have to be looked after, slipped over to the Captains,
discussing by the fire.
250 THE CONQUEST
" Sacajawea t'ink she want to see de whale. She ought
not go."
" Very well," answered the Captains, scarce heeding.
" She better stay at the fort. It would be a hard jaunt
for a woman to go over Tillamook Head."
Charboneau went back. " De Captinne say you cannot
go!"
This was a staggering blow to Sacajawea, but her
woman's determination had become aroused and she took
the rostrum, so to speak. Leaving the baby Touissant
with his father, she in turn slipped over to the Captains.
Sacajawea was a born linguist. " Captinne, you re
member w'en we reach de rivers and you knew not which
to follow ? I show de country an' point de stream. Again
w'en my husband could not spik, I spik for you.
" Now, Captinne, I travel great way to see de Beeg
Water. I climb de mountain an' help de boat on de
rapide. An' now dis monstous fish haf come " - Saca
jawea could scarce restrain her tears. Sacajawea was
only a woman, and a brave little woman at that.
Captain Lewis was moved. " Sacajawea, you are one
of those who are born not to die. Of course you can go.
Go and be getting ready, and," he added, " if Charboneau
wants to go too, he will have to carry the baby ! "
They breakfasted by candle-light. Everybody was
ready next morning, but Sacajawea was ahead of them
all. Charboneau looked at her out of the corner of his
eye, but said nothing. More than once the Captains had
reminded him of his duty.
The sun rose clear and cloudless on a land of spring
time, and yet it was only January. Robins sang around
the stockade, bluebirds whizzed by, silver in the sunlight.
Two canoes proceeded down the Netul into Meriwether
Bay, on the way to the Clatsop town.
After a day's adventure, they camped near a herd of
elk in the beautiful moonlight. At noon, next day, they
reached the salt-makers. Here Jo Fields, Bratton, and
Gibson had their brass kettles under a rock arch, boiling
and boiling seawater into a gallon of salt a day.
Hiring Twiltch, a young Indian, for guide, they
A WHALE ASHORE 251
climbed Tillamook Head, about thirty miles south of
Cape Disappointment. Upon this promontory, Clark's
Point of View, they paused before the boisterous Pacific,
breaking with fury and flinging its waves above the
Rock of Tillamook.
On one side the blue Columbia widened into bays
studded with Chinook and Clatsop villages ; on the other
stretched rich prairies, enlivened by beautiful streams
and lakes at the foot of the hills. Behind, in serried rank,
the Douglas spruce — " the tree of Turner's dreams,"
the king of conifers, — stood monarch of the hills. Two
hundred, three hundred feet in air they towered, a hun
dred feet without a limb, so dense that not a ray of sun
could reach the ground beneath.
Sacajawea, save Pocahontas the most travelled Indian
Princess in our history, spoke not a word, but looked with
calm and shining eye upon the fruition of her hopes.
Now she could go back to the Mandan towns and speak
of things that Madame Jussaume had never seen, and of
the Big Water beyond the Shining Mountains.
Down the steep and ragged rocks that overhung the
sea, they clambered to a Tillamook village, where lay the
great whale, stranded on the shore. Nothing was left
but a skeleton, for from every Indian village within trav
elling distance, men and women were working like bees
upon the huge carcass. Then home they went, trailing
over the mountains, every squaw with a load of whale
blubber on her back, to be for many a month the dainty
of an Indian lodge.
These Indian lodges or houses were a source of great
interest to Lewis and Clark. Sunk four feet into the
ground and rising well above, like an out-door cellar, they
were covered with ridgepoles and low sloping roofs. The
sides were boarded with puncheons of cedar, laboriously
split with elkhorn wedges and stone hammers.
A door in the gable admitted to this half-underground
home by means of a ladder. Around the inner walls,
beds of mats were raised on scaffolds two or three feet
high, and under the beds were deposited winter stores of
dried berries, roots, nuts, and fish.
252 THE CONQUEST
In the centre of each house a fireplace, six or eight feet
long, was sunk in the floor, and surrounded by a cedar
fender and mats for the family to sit on. The walls,
lined with mats and cedar bark, formed a very effective
shelter.
Did some poor stranded mariner teach the savage this
semi-civilised architecture, or was it evolved by his own
genius? However this may be, these houses were found
from Yaquina Bay to Yakutat.
In such a house as this Captain Clark visited Coboway,
chief of the Clatsops, in his village on the sunny side of a
hill. As soon as he entered, clean mats were spread.
Cobo way's wife, Tse-salks, a Tillamook Princess, brought
berries and roots and fish on neat platters of rushes.
Syrup of sallal berries was served in bowls of horn and
meat in wooden trenchers.
Naturally, Sacajawea was interested in domestic uten
sils, wooden bowls, spoons of horn, skewers and spits
for roasting meat, and beautifully woven water-tight
baskets.
Every squaw habitually carried a knife, fastened to the
thumb by a loop of twine, to be hid under the robe when
visitors came. These knives, bought of the traders, were
invaluable to the Indian mother. With it she dug roots,
cut wood, meat, or fish, split rushes for her flag mats and
baskets, and fashioned skins for dresses and moccasins.
Ever busy they were, the most patient, devoted women
in the world.
Sacajawea, with her beautiful dress and a husband
who sometimes carried the baby, was a new sort of mortal
on this Pacific coast.
While they were conversing, a flock of ducks lit on the
water. Clark took his rifle and shot the head off one.
The astonished Indians brought the bird and marvelled.
Their own poor flintlocks, loaded with bits of gravel when
shot failed, often would not go off in cold weather, but
here was " very great medicine." They examined the
duck, the musket, and the small bullets, a hundred to the
pound.
" Kloshe musquet ! wake ! kum-tux musquet ! A very
A WHALE ASHORE 253
good musquet! No! do not understand this kind of
musquet ! "
Thus early is it a historical fact that the Chinook
jargon was already established on the Pacific coast. This
jargon, a polyglot of traders' tongues, like the old Lingua
Franca of the Mediterranean, is used by the coast Indians
to this day from the Columbia River to Point Barrow on
the Arctic. And for its birth we may thank the Boston
traders.
Chinooks, Clatsops, Tillamooks faced that stormy beach
and lived on winter stores of roots, berries, fish, and dried
meat. Their beautiful elastic bows of white cedar were
seldom adequate to kill the great elk, so when the rush
bags under the beds were empty, they watched for fish
thrown up by the waves.
" Sturgeon is very good," said a Clatsop in English,
peering and prying along the hollows of the beach. But
the great whale, Ecola, that was a godsend to the poor
people. Upon it now they might live until the salmon
came, flooding the country with plenty.
Old Chief Coboway of the Clatsops watched those
shores for sixty years. He did not tell this story to
Lewis and Clark, but he told it to his children, and so it
belongs here.
" An old woman came crying to the Clatsop village :
' Something on the shore ! Behold, it is no whale ! Two
spruce trees stand upright on it. Ropes are tied to those
spruce trees. Behold bears came out of it ! ' Then all
the people ran. Behold the bears had built a fire of drift
wood on the shore. They were popping corn. They held
copper kettles in their hands. They had lids. The bears
pointed inland and asked for water. Then two people
took the kettles and ran inland. They hid. Some climbed
up into the thing. They went down into the ship. It was
full of boxes. They found brass buttons in a string half
a fathom long. They went out. They set fire. The ship
burned. It burned like fat. Then the Clatsops gathered
the iron, the copper, and the brass. Then were the Clat
sops rich."
One of these men was Ko-na-pe. He and his com-
254 THE CONQUEST
panion were held as slaves. Ko-na-pe was a worker in
iron and could fashion knives and hatchets. From that
time the Clatsops had knives. He was too great to be
held as a slave, so the Clatsops gave him and his friend
their liberty. They built a cabin at a place now known as
New Astoria, but the Indians called it " Ko-na-pe," and
it was known by that name long after the country was
settled by the whites.
February had now arrived. For weeks every man not
a hunter stood over the kettles with his deer-skin sleeves
rolled up, working away at elkskins, rubbing, dipping,
and wringing. Then again they went back into the suds
for another rubbing and working, and then the beautiful
skin, hung up to smoke and dry, came out soft and
pliable.
Shields, the skilful, cut out the garments with a butcher
knife, and all set to work with awls for needles and deer
sinews for thread.
For weeks this leather-dressing and sewing had been
going on, some using the handy little "housewives" given
by Dolly Madison and the ladies of the White House,
until Captain Lewis records, " the men are better fitted
with clothing and moccasins than they have been since
starting on this voyage."
. Captain Lewis and Captain Clark had each a large coat
finished of the skin of the " tiger cat," of which it " took
seven robes to make a coat."
With beads and old razors, Captain Lewis bought
high-crowned Chinook hats, of white cedar-bark and bear-
grass, woven European fashion by the nimble fingers of
the Clatsop girls, fine as Leghorn and water-tight.
Patrick Gass counted up the moccasins and found three
hundred and fifty-eight pairs, besides a good stock of
dressed elkskins for tents and bedding. " And I compute
131 elk and 20 deer shot in this neighbourhood during the
winter/' he added.
But now the elk were going to the mountains, game
was practically unobtainable. Now and then Drouillard
snared a fine fat beaver or an otter in his traps ; sometimes
the Indians came over with sturgeon, fresh anchovies, or
A WHALE ASHORE 255
a bag of wapato, but even this supply was precarious and
uncertain.
February n, Captain Clark completed a map of the
country, including rivers and mountains from Fort Man-
dan to Clatsop, dotting in cross-cuts for the home journey,
the feat of a born geographer.
February 21 the saltmakers returned, with twelve gal
lons of salt sealed up to last to the cache on the Jefferson.
While Shields refitted the guns, others opened and
examined the precious powder. Thirty-five canisters
remained, and yet, banged as they had been over many a
mountain pass, and sunk in many a stream, all but five
were found intact as when they were sealed at Pittsburg.
Three were bruised and cracked, one had been pierced
by a nail, one had not been properly sealed, but by care
the men could dry them out and save the whole.
The greatest necessity now was a boat. A long, slim
Chinook canoe made out of a single tree of fir or cedar
was beyond price. Preliminary dickers were tried with
Chinooks and Clatsops. Finally Drouillard went up to
Cathlamet.
Of all the trinkets that Drouillard could muster, nothing
short of Captain Lewis's laced uniform coat could induce
Queen Sally's people to part with a treasured canoe.
And here it was. Misfortune had become a joke.
;' Well, now, the United States owes me a coat,"
laughed Lewis, as he found his last civilised garment
gone to the savages.
" Six blue robes, one of scarlet, five made out of the old
United States' flag that had floated over many a council,
a few old clothes, Clark's uniform coat and hat and a few
little trinkets that might be tied in a couple of handker
chiefs," this was the reserve fund to carry them two
thousand miles to St. Louis.
But each stout-hearted explorer had his gun and plenty
of powder — that was wealth.
" Now, in case we never reach the United States," said
Lewis, " what then ? "
" We must leave a Memorial," answered Clark. And
so the Captains prepared this document :
256 THE CONQUEST
" The object of this list is, that through the medium of
some civilised person, who may see the same, it may be made
known to the world, that the party consisting of the persons
whose names are hereunto annexed, and who were sent out
by the Government of the United States to explore the in
terior of the continent of North America, did penetrate the
same by the way of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, to the
discharge of the latter into the Pacific ocean, where they ar
rived on the I4th day of November, 1805, and departed the
2$d day of March, 1806, on their return to the United States
by the same route by which they had come out!'
To this document every man signed his name, and
copies were given to the various chiefs. One was posted
at Fort Clatsop to be given to any trader that might arrive
in the river, and thus, in case of their death, some account
of their exploration might be saved to the world. On the
back of some of the papers Clark sketched the route.
At last only one day's food remained. Necessity com
pelled removal. In vain their eyes were strained toward
the sea. Never were Lewis and Clark destined to see a
summer day on the Columbia, when sails of ships flapped
listlessly against the masts, and vessels heaved reluctantly
on the sluggish waters, rolling in long swells on Clatsop
beach.
On Sunday, March 23, 1806, the boats were loaded and
all was ready. Chief Coboway came over at noon to bid
them good bye.
In gratitude for many favours during the past winter,
Lewis and Clark presented their houses and furniture to
the kind-hearted old chief.
Chief Coboway made Fort Clatsop his winter home
during the remainder of his life. Years passed. The
stockade fell down, young trees grew up through the
cabins, but the spring is there still, gushing forth its
waters, cool as in the adventurous days of one hundred
years ago.
A RACE FOR EMPIRE 257
XX
A RACE FOR EMPIRE
IN this very December of 1805 while Lewis and Clark
were struggling with the storms of ocean at the mouth
of the Columbia, a thousand miles to the north of
them the indefatigable and indomitable Simon Fraser
was also building a fort, among the lochs and bens of
New Caledonia, the British Columbia of to-day.
On the very day that Lewis and Clark left Fort Man-
dan, Simon Fraser and his men had faced toward the
Rockies. While Lewis and Clark were exploring the
Missouri, Fraser and his voyageurs were pulling for
dear life up the Saskatchewan and over to Athabasca.
On the very day that Lewis and Clark moved into Fort
Clatsop, Simon Fraser, at the Rocky Mountain Portage,
had men busily gathering stones " to get a chimney built
for his bedroom." The icy northern winter came down,
but in January mortar was made to plaster his trading
fort, the Rocky Mountain Portage at the Peace River
Pass.
All that Arctic winter he traded with the natives, killed
deer and moose, and made pemmican for an expedition
still farther to the west.
All through the stormy, icy April, building his boats
and pounding his pemmican, Fraser stamped and stormed
and swore because the snows refused to melt — because
the rivers yet were blocked with ice.
The boats were at the door, the bales of goods were
tied, when the ice began to break in May.
The moment the river was clear all hands were roused
at daybreak. Simon Fraser turned the Rocky Mountain
Portage over to McGillivray, who had arrived on snow
shoes, and pressed on west, discovering McLeod Lake
and building Fort McLeod upon its shores. Then he
portaged over to the Fraser, which he believed to be the
17
258 THE CONQUEST
Columbia, and going up the Stuart branch built Fort
St. James on Stuart Lake. During the winter and sum
mer, after Lewis and Clark reached home, he built Fort
Fraser on Fraser Lake, and Fort George upon the Fraser
River, still thinking it was the Columbia.
" Now will I reach the mouth of this Columbia," said
Fraser in the Spring of 1808, launching his boat, the Per
severance, upon the wildest water of the North.
" You cannot pass," said the Indians, and they waved
and whirled their arms to indicate the mad tumultuous
swirling of the waters.
" Whatever the obstacle," said Simon Fraser, " I shall
follow this river to the end," and down he went for days
and days through turbulent gulfs and whirlpools, past
rocks and rapids and eddies, under frowning, overhang
ing precipices in the high water of May.
The Indians spoke of white people.
" It must be Lewis and Clark," groaned Fraser, re
doubling his effort to win another empire for his king.
Daily, hourly, risking their lives, at every step in the
Mountains the Indians said, "You can go no further."
But the sturdy Scotchmen gripped their oars and set
their teeth, turning, doubling, twisting, shooting past
rocky points that menaced death, portaging, lifting
canoes by sheer grit and resolution up almost impass
able rockways, over cliffs almost without a foothold and
down into the wave again. So ran the Northwesters
down the wild river to the sea, and camped near the
present site of New Westminster. And lo! it was not
the Columbia.
Back came Simon Fraser to Fort William on Lake
Superior to report what he had done, and they crowned
his brow with the name of his own great river, the
Fraser.
Travellers look down the frowning Fraser gorge to
day, and little realise why Simon Fraser made that dar
ing journey.
"A SHIP! A SHIP!" 259
XXI
"A SHIP! A SHIP!"
WHILE Lewis and Clark were making prepara
tions to leave Fort Clatsop, all unknown to
them a ship was trying to cross the bar into
the Columbia River. And what a tale had she to tell,
— of hunger, misery, despair, and death at Sitka.
Since 1787 the Boston ships had been trading along
these shores. In that year 1792, when Captain Robert
Gray discovered the Columbia River, there were already
twenty-one American ships in the Pacific northwest.
In May, 1799, the Boston brig Caroline, Captain Cleve
land, was buying furs in Sitka Sound, when coasting
along over from the north came the greatest of all the
"Russians, Alexander von Baranof, with two ships and a
fleet of bidarkas.
" What now will you have?" demanded the Sitka
chief, as the expedition entered the basin of Sitka Sound.
" A place to build a fort and establish a settlement for
trade," answered Baranof.
" A Boston ship is anchored below and buying many
skins/' answered the chief. But presents were distrib
uted, a trade was made, and Russian axes began felling
the virgin forest on the sides of Verstova.
The next day Captain Cleveland visited Baranof at his
fort building.
"Savages!" echoed Captain Cleveland to Baranof s
comment on the natives. " I should say so. I have but
ten men before the mast, but on account of the fierce
character of these Indians I have placed a screen of hides
around the ship, that they may not see the deck nor know
how few men I have. Two pieces of cannon are in posi
tion and a pair of blunderbusses on the tafrrail."
But the land was rich in furs. It was this that
brought Baranof over from Kadiak.
260 THE CONQUEST
In three years Sitka was a strong fort, but in June,
1802, in the absence of Baranof, it was attacked one
day by a thousand Indians armed with muskets bought
of the Boston traders.
In a few hours the fort, a new ship in the harbour,
warehouses, cattle sheds, and a bathhouse were burnt
to ashes. The poor dumb cattle were stuck full of
lances.
A terrible massacre accompanied the burning. To
escape suffocation the Russians leaped from the flaming
windows only to be caught on the uplifted lances of the
savage Sitkas. Some escaped to the woods, when an
English vessel providentially appeared and carried the
few remaining survivors to Kadiak.
That autumn two new ships arrived from Russia with
hunters, labourers, provisions, and news of Baranof 's pro
motion by the czar.
Tears coursed down the great man's weather-beaten
cheeks. " I am a nobleman ; but Sitka is lost ! I do not
care to live; I will go and either die or restore the pos
sessions of my august benefactor."
Then back came Baranof to Sitka on his errand of
vengeance, with three hundred bidarkas and six small
Russian ships, to be almost wrecked in Sitka Sound.
Here he was joined by the Neva just out from Kron-
stadt, the first to carry the Russian flag around the
world.
Upon the hill where Sitka stands to-day, the Indians
had built a fort of logs piled around with tangled brush.
On this the Russians opened fire. But no reply came.
With one hundred and fifty men and several guns, Bar
anof landed in the dense woods to take the fort by storm.
Then burst the sheeted flame. Ten Russians were killed
and twenty-six wounded. But for the fleet, Baranof s
career would have ended on that day.
But in time ships with cannon were more than a match
for savages armed with Boston muskets. Far into the
night a savage chant was wafted into the air — the
Alaskans had surrendered. At daylight all was still.
No sound came from the shore, and when the Russians
"A SHIP! A SHIP!" 261
visited the Indian hill, the fort was filled with slaugh
tered bodies of infant children, slain by their own par
ents who felt themselves unable to carry them and escape.
The Indian fort was immediately burned to the ground
and on its site arose the Russian stronghold of Sitka
Castle.
That new fort at Sitka was just finished and mounted
with cannon the summer that Lewis and Clark came
down the Columbia. Kitchen gardens were under cul
tivation and live stock thriving.
At Sitka that same autumn the Elizaveta arrived, with
the Russian Imperial Inspector of Alaska on board, the
Baron von Rezanof, " Chamberlain of the Russian Court
and Commander of all America," he called himself.
" What is this I hear of those Bostonians?" inquired
the great Baron, unrolling long portraits of the Imperial
family to be hung in Sitka Castle. " Those Bostonians,
are they undermining our trade in furs with China? "
" Ah, yes," answered Count Baranof, " the American
republic is greatly in need of Chinese goods, Chinese
teas and silks, which formerly had to be purchased in
coin. But since these shores have been discovered with
their abundance of furs, they are no longer obliged to
take coin with them, but load their vessels with products
of their own country."
" All too numerous have become these Boston skippers
on this northwest coast," continued Von Rezanof in a
decisive tone. " Frequent complaints have been made to
the American President that his people are selling fire
arms to our Indians, but all to no purpose. It is an out
rage. We are justified in using force. I recommend an
armed brig to patrol these waters."
Food supplies were low at Sitka that winter. No ship
came. The Elizaveta dispatched to Kadiak for supplies
returned no more. No flour, no fish, not even seal blub
ber for the garrisons, could be caught or purchased. They
were eating crows and eagles and devil-fish. Just then,
when a hundred cannon were loaded to sweep the Yankee
skippers from the sea, a little Rhode Island ship came
sailing into Sitka harbour.
262 THE CONQUEST
" Shall we expel these American traders from the
North Pacific?" demanded Von Rezanof.
"For the love of God, no!" cried Baranof. "That
little ship is our saviour ! "
Into the starving garrison the Yankee Captain De
Wolf brought bread and beef, and raised the famine
siege of Sitka Castle. Baranof bought the little ship,
the Juno, with all her cargo, for eight thousand dollars
in furs and drafts on St. Petersburg. In addition Rez
anof gave De Wolf a sloop, the Ermak, to carry his men
and furs to the Hawaiian Islands.
" God grant that they may not have paid dear for their
rashness in trusting their lives to such a craft!" ex
claimed Von Rezanof, as the gallant Yankee Captain
spread sail and disappeared from Sitka harbour.
The Juno, a staunch, copper-bottomed fast vessel of
two hundred six tons, built at Bristol, Rhode Island, in
1799, was now fitted out for the Russian trade and dis
patched to Kadiak.
The storms that Lewis and Clark heard booming on
the Oregon coast that winter, devastated Alaskan shores
as well. When the breakers came thundering up the
rocks and the winds shook Sitka Castle, Count Baranof
in his stronghold could not sleep for thinking, " Oh, the
ships ! — the ships out on this stormy deep, laden with
what I need so much ! "
The little Juno returned from Kadiak with dried fish
and oil, and news of disaster : " The Elizaveta has been
wrecked in a heavy gale. Six large bidarkas laden with
furs on the way to you went down. Two hundred
hunters have perished at sea. Our settlement at Yaku-
tat has been destroyed by an Indian massacre."
" My God ! My God ! " Baranof cried, " how can we
repair all these disasters! "
But ever and ever the gray sea boomed upon the shore
where the wretched inmates of Sitka Castle were dying.
The relief from the Juno was only temporary. By Feb
ruary not a pound of bread a day dared they distribute
to the men.
Long since Rezanof had declared they must have an
"A SHIP! A SHIP!" 263
agricultural settlement. Now he fixed his eye on the
Columbia River. Sitting there in the dreary castle he
was writing to the czar, little dreaming that in a hun
dred years his very inmost thought would be read in
America.
Starvation at Sitka was imminent, — it was impos
sible to delay longer. Into the stormy sea Rezanof him
self set the Juno's sail on his way to the Columbia.
While Lewis and Clark were writing out the muster
roll to nail to the wall at Fort Clatsop. for any passing
ship, Rezanof was striving to cross the Columbia bar.
None could see beyond the mists. Contrary winds blew,
it rained, it hailed.
Rezanof sighted the Columbia March 14, 1806, but
the current drove. him back. Again on the 2Oth he tried
to enter, and on the 2ist, but the stormy river, like a thing
of life, beat him back and beat him back, until the Rus
sian gave it up, and four days later ran into the harbour
of San Francisco.
In June he returned with wheat, oats, pease, beans,
flour, tallow, and salt to the famished traders at Sitka.
But notwithstanding all these troubles, in 1805-6 Bar-
anof dispatched to St. Petersburg furs valued at more
than five hundred thousand roubles.
More and more the Boston traders came back to
Alaskan waters. Baranof often found it easier to buy
supplies from Boston than from Okhotsk.
" Furnish me with Aleutian hunters and bidarkas
and I will hunt on shares for you," proposed a Boston
Captain.
" Agreed," said Baranof, and for years fleets of bidar
kas under Boston Captains hunted and trapped and traded
for sea otter southward along Pacific shores.
" These Boston smugglers and robbers! " muttered the
Spaniards of California. " Where do they hide them
selves all winter? We know they are on our shores but
never a glimpse can we get of their fleet." Meanwhile
the Boston traders on the coasts of California raked in
the skins and furs, and sailing around by Hawaii reached
Sitka in time for Spring sealing in the north.
264 THE CONQUEST
Some hints of this reached the Russian Directory at St.
Petersburg, but no one dared to interfere with Baranof .
Shipload after shipload of furs he sent home that sold
for fabulous sums in the markets of Russia. The czar
himself took shares and the Imperial navy guarded the
Russias of North America.
All honour to Baranof, Viking of Sitka, and builder
of ships! For forty years he ruled the Northwest, the
greatest man in the North Pacific. His name was known
on the coast of Mexico, even to Brazil and Havana. The
Boston merchants consulted him in making up their car
goes. In 1810 he went into partnership with John Jacob
Astor to exchange supplies for furs.
Above all disaster he rose, though ship after ship was
lost. But it must be admitted the Russians were not such
seamen as the gallant Boston skippers.
Never again will this land see more hardy sailors than
the American tars that travelled the seas at the close of our
Revolution. Our little Yankee brigs were creeping down
and down the coast and around the Horn, until every vil
lage had its skippers in the far Pacific. Some went for
furs and some for whales, and all for bold adventure.
In July, 1806, the Lydia, having just rescued two
American sailors from the savages at Vancouver Island,
came into the Columbia River for a load of spars, the be
ginning of a mighty commerce. Here they heard of Lewis
and Clark, and ten miles up, faithful old Chief Coboway
gave Captain Hill the muster roll left at Fort Clatsop.
This, sent by way of China, reached the United States
in 1807, to find the great explorers safe at home.
With the death of Baranof in 1819 ended the vast plan
of Russia to make the northern half of the Pacific its
own. Baranof was small and wrinkled and bald, but his
eye had life. He would have made a czar like Peter the
Great. To him and him alone was due the Russia of
America, that for seven million dollars was sold to us
in 1870, an empire in itself.
BACK TO CIVILISATION 265
XXII
BACK TO CIVILISATION
THE canoes were loaded, and at one o'clock in the
afternoon of Sunday, the 23d day of March, 1806,
Lewis and Clark took final leave of Fort Clatsop.
Back past Cathlamet they came, where Queen Sally
still watched by her totem posts ; past Oak Point on
Fanny's Island, named by Clark* where two Springs later
a Boston ship made the first white settlement in Oregon.
Slowly the little flotilla paddled up, past Coffin Rock,
immemorial deposit of Indian dead, past snowy St.
Helens, a landmark at sea for the ship that would enter
the harbour.
Flowers were everywhere, the hillsides aglow with red
flowering currants that made March as gay as the roses
of June. The grass was high, and the robins were
singing.
At sunset, March 30, ' they camped on a beautiful
prairie, the future site of historic Vancouver. Before
them the Columbia was a shimmer of silver. Behind,
rose the dim, dark Oregon forest. The sharp cry of the
sea-gull rang over the waters, and the dusky pelican and
the splendid brown albatross were sailing back to the
sea.
Herds of elk and deer roamed on the uplands and in
woody green islands below, where flocks of ducks, geese,
and swans were digging up the lily-like wapato with their
bills.
With laboured breath, still bending to the oar, on the
first of April they encountered a throng of Indians crowd
ing down from above, gaunt, hollow-eyed, almost starved,
greedily tarrying to pick up the bones and refuse meat
thrown from the camp of the whites.
" Katah mesika chaco?" inquired Captain Lewis.
" Halo muck-a-muck" answered the forlorn Indians.
" Dried fish all gone. No deer. No elk. No antelope
266 THE CONQUEST
to the Nez Perce country." Hundreds were coming down
for food at Wapato. " Blip salmon chaco."
" Until the salmon come ! " That had been the cry of
the Clatsops. The Chinooks were practising incantations
to bring the longed-for salmon. The Cathlamets were
spreading their nets. The Wahkiakums kept their boats
afloat. Even the Multnomahs were wistfully waiting.
And now here came plunging down all the upper country
for wapato, — " Until the salmon come."
" And pray, when will that be? "
" Not until the next full moon," — at least the second
of May, and in May the Americans had hoped to cross
the mountains. All the camp deliberated, — and still the
Cascade Indians came flocking down into the lower
valley.
" We must remain here until we can collect meat
enough to last us to the Nez Perce nation," said the Cap
tains, and so, running the gauntlet of starvation, it hap
pened that Lewis and Clark camped for ten days near the
base of Mt. Hood at the river Sandy. In order to collect
as much meat as possible a dozen hunters were sent out;
the rest were employed in cutting and hanging the meat
to dry.
Two young Indians came into the camp at the Sandy.
" Kah mesika Illahee? — Where is your country?"
was asked them, in the Chinook jargon caught at Clatsop.
" At the Falls of a great river that flows into the
Columbia from the south."
" From the south ? We saw no such river."
With a coal on a mat one of the Indians drew it. The
Captains looked.
" Ah ! behind those islands ! " It was where the Mult-
nomah chieftain in his war canoe had said, " Village
there!" on their downward journey to the sea. Clark
gave one of the men a burning glass to conduct him to
the spot, and set out with seven men in a canoe.
Along the south side of the Columbia, back they pad
dled to the mysterious inlet hidden behind that emerald
curtain. And along with them paddled canoe-loads of
men, women, and children in search of food.
BACK TO CIVILISATION 267
Clark now perceived that what they had called " Image-
canoe Island " consisted of three islands, the one in the
middle concealing the opening between the other two.
Here great numbers of canoes were drawn up. Lifting
their long, slim boats to their backs, the Indian women
crossed inland to the sloughs and ponds, where, frighten
ing up the ducks, they plunged to the breast into the icy
cold water. There they stood for hours, loosening wapato
with their feet. The bulbs, rising to the surface, were
picked up and tossed into the boats to feed the hungry
children.
Clark entered an Indian house to buy wapato.
" Not, not! " with sullen look they shook their heads.
No gift of his could buy the precious wapato.
Deliberately then the captain took out one of Dr. Sau-
grain's phosphorus matches and tossed it in the fire.
Instantly it spit and flamed.
<e Me-sah-chie! M e-sah-chie ! " — the Indians shrieked,
and piled the cherished wapato at his feet. The scream
ing children fled behind the beds and hid behind the men.
An old man began to speak with great vehemence, im
ploring his god for protection.
The match burned out and quiet was restored. Clark
paid for the wapato, smoked, and went on, behind 'the
islands.
As if lifting a veil the boat swept around the willows
and the Indian waved his hand.
" Multnomah ! "
Before them, vast and deep, a river rolled its smooth
volume into the Columbia. At the same moment five
snow peaks burst into view, — Rainier, Hood, St. Helens,
Adams, and to the southeast another snowy cone which
Clark at once saluted, " Mount Jefferson ! "
For the first recorded time a white man gazed on the
river Willamette.
This sudden vision of emerald hills, blue waters, and
snowy peaks forced the involuntary exclamation, " The
only spot west of the Rocky Mountains suitable for a
settlement!" The very air of domestic occupation
gleamed on the meadows flecked with deer and waterfall.
268 THE CONQUEST
Amid the scattered groves of oak and dogwood, bursting
now into magnolian bloom, Clark half expected to see
some stately mansion rise, as in the park of some old
English nobleman. The ever-prevailing flowering cur
rant lit the landscape with a hue of roses.
A dozen miles or more Clark pressed on, up the great
inland river, and slept one night near the site of the
present Portland. He examined the soil, looked at the
timber, and measured a fallen fir three hundred and
eighteen feet as it lay.
Watching the current rolling its uniform flow from
some unknown distant source, the Captain began taking
soundings.
" This river appears to possess water enough for the
largest ship. Nor is it rash to believe that it may water
the country as far as California." For at least two-thirds
of the width he could find no bottom with his five-fathom
line.
Along that wide deep estuary, the grainships of the
world to-day ride up to the wharves of Portland. The
same snow peaks are there, the same emerald hills, and
the bounteous smile of Nature blushing in a thousand
orchards.
All along the shores were deserted solitary houses of
broad boards roofed with cedar bark, with household fur
niture, stone mortars, pestles, canoes, mats, bladders of
train oil, baskets, bowls, trenchers — all left. The fire
places were filled with dead embers, the bunk-line tiers
of beds were empty. All had just gone or were going to
the fisheries.
"And where?"
" To Clackamas nation. Hyas tyee Tumwater. Great
Falls. Salmon."
Had Clark but passed a few miles further up, he would
have found hundreds of Indians at the fishing rendez
vous, Clackamas Rapids and Willamette Falls.
" How many of the Clackamas nation ? "
" Eleven villages, to the snow peak."
"And beyond?"
" Forty villages, the Callapooias." With outstretched
BACK TO CIVILISATION 269
hand the Indian closed his eyes and shook his head, —
evidently he had never been so far to the south.
Back around Warrior's Point Clark came, whence the
Multnomahs were wont to issue to battle in their huge
wrar canoes. An old Indian trail led up into the interior,
where for ages the lordly Multnomahs had held their
councils. Many houses had fallen entirely to ruin.
Clark inquired the cause of decay. An aged Indian
pointed to a woman deeply pitted with the smallpox.
" All died of that. Ahn-cutty! Long time ago! "
The Multnomahs lived on Wapato Island. A dozen
nations gave fealty to Multnomah. All had symbolic
totems, carved and painted on door and bedstead, and at
every bedhead hiing a war club and a Moorish scimitar
of iron, thin and sharp, rude relic of Ko-na-pe's work
shop.
Having now dried sufficient meat to last to the Nez
Perces, Lewis and Clark set out for the Dalles, that
tragical valley, racked and battered, where the devils
held their tourneys when the world was shaped by flood
and flame.
Through the sheeny brown basaltic rock, three rifts
let through the river, where, in fishing time, salmon
leaped in prodigious numbers, filling the Indians' baskets,
tons and tons a day. But the salmon had not yet come.
At this season the upper tribes came down to the Dalles
to traffic robes and silk grass for sea-shells and wapato.
Fish was money. After the traders came, beads, beads,
became the Indian's one ambition. For beads he would
sacrifice his only garment and his last morsel of food.
In this annual traffic of east and west, the Dalles In
dians had become traders, robbers, pirates. No canoe
passed that way without toll. Dressed in deerskin, elk,
bighorn, wolf, and buffalo, these savages lay now in wait
for Lewis and Clark, portaging up the long narrows.
Tugging, sweating, paddling, poling, pulling by cords,
it was difficult work hauling canoes up the narrow way.
Crowds of Indians pressed in.
" Six tomahawks and a knife are gone!"
" Another tomahawk gone ! "
2;o THE CONQUEST
" Out of the road," commanded Lewis. " Whoever
steals shall be shot instantly."
The crowds fell back. Every man toiled on with gun
in hand. But from village to village, dishes, blankets,
and whatever the Indians could get their hands on, dis
appeared. Soon there would be no baggage.
It seemed impossible to detect a thief. " Nothing but
numbers protects us," said the white men.
Worse even than the pirates of the Sioux, it came
almost to pitched battle. Again and again Lewis ha
rangued the chiefs for the restoration of stolen property.
Once he struck an Indian. Finally he set out to burn a
village, but the missing property came to light, hidden in
an Indian hut.
So long did it take to make these portages that food
supplies failed. In the heart of a thickly populated and
savage country the expedition was bankrupt.
With what gratitude, then, they met Yellept, chief of
the Walla Wallas, waiting upon his hills.
" Come to my village. You shall have food. You
shall have horses."
Gladly they accompanied him to his village at the
mouth of the Walla Walla river. Immediately he called
in not only his own but the neighbouring nations, urging
them to hospitality. Then Chief Yellept, the most notable
man in all that country, himself brought an armful of
wood for their fires and a platter of roasted mullets.
At once all the Walla Wallas followed with armloads
of fuel; the campfires blazed and crackled. Footsore,
weary, half-starved, Lewis and Clark and their men
supped and then slept.
Fortunately there was among the Walla Wallas a cap
tive Shoshone boy who spoke the tongue of Sacajawea.
In council the Captains explained themselves and the
object of their journey.
" Opposite our village a shorter route leads to the
Kooskooskee," said Yellept. " A road of grass and
water, with deer and antelope."
Clark computed that this cut-off would save eighty
miles.
BACK TO CIVILISATION 271
In vain the Captains desired to press on.
" Wait," begged Yellept. " Wait." Already he had
sent invitations to the Eyakimas, his friends the Black
Bears, and to the Cayuses.
Possibly Sacajawea had hinted something; at any
rate with a cry of " Very Great Medicine," the lame, the
halt, the blind pressed around the camp. The number of
unfortunates, products of Indian battle, neglect, and ex
posure, was prodigious.
Opening the medicine chest, while Lewis bought horses,
Clark turned physician, distributing eye-water, splinting
broken bones, dealing out pills and sulphur. One Indian
with a contracted knee came limping in.
" My own father, Walla Walla chief," says old Se-
cho-wa, an aged Indian woman on the Umatilla to-day.
" Lots of children, lots of horses. I, very little girl,
follow them."
With volatile liniments and rubbing the chief was
relieved.
In gratitude Yellept presented Clark with a beautiful
white horse ; Clark in turn gave all he had — his sword.
Bidding the chief adieu, the Captains recorded : " We
may, indeed, justly affirm, that of all the Indians whom
we have met since leaving the United States the Walla
Wallas were the most hospitable and sincere."
Poor old Yellept! One hundred years later his medal
was found in the sand at the mouth of the Walla Walla.
All his sons were slain in battle or died of disease. When
the last one lay stretched in the grave, the old chief stepped
in upon the corpse and commanded his people to bury
them in one grave together.
" On account of his great sorrow," says old Se-cho-wa.
And so he was buried.
272 THE CONQUEST
XXIII
CAMP CHOPUNNISH
AS Lewis and Clark with twenty-three horses set
out over the camas meadows that April morning
a hundred years ago, the world seemed brighter
for the kindness of the Walla Wallas.
At the Dalles the forest had ended. Now they were
on the great Columbian plains that stretch to the Rockies,
the northwest granary of to-day. The dry exhilarating
air billowed the verdure like a sea.
Meadow larks sang and flitted. Dove-coloured sage
hens, the cock of the plains, two-thirds the size of a
turkey, cackled like domestic fowl before the advancing
cavalcade. Spotted black-and-white pheasants pecked
in the grass like the little topknot " Dominicks " the
men had known around their boyhood homes.
And everywhere were horses.
" More hor-r-ses between th' Gr-reat Falls av th'
Columby and th' Nez Perces than I iver saw in th' same
space uv countery in me loife before," said Patrick Gass.
" They are not th' lar-r-gest soize but very good an'
active."
" Of an excellent race, lofty, elegantly formed, and
durable," those Cayuse horses are described by Lewis
and Clark. " Many of them appear like fine English
coursers, and resemble in fleetness and bottom, as well as
in form and colour, the best blooded horses of Virginia."
A hundred years ago, the Cayuse of the Columbian
plains was a recent importation from the bluest blooded
Arabian stock of Spain. White-starred, white-footed,
he was of noble pedigree. Traded or stolen from tribe
to tribe, these Spanish horses found a home on the Co
lumbia. All winter these wild horses fattened on the
plain ; madly their Indian owners rode them ; and when
they grew old, stiff, and blind, they went, so the Indians
said, to Horse Heaven on the Des Chutes to die.
CAMP CHOPUNNISH 273
Following the old Nez Perces trail, that became a
stage road in the days of gold, and then a railroad,
Lewis and Clark came to the land of the Nez Perces, —
Chopunnish.
Thirty-one years later the missionary Spalding planted
an apple-tree where Lewis and Clark reached the Snake
at the mouth of Alpowa creek, May 4, 1806.
We-ark-koompt, the Indian express, came out to meet
them. Over the camp of Black Eagle the American flag
was flying. Chiefs vied with one another to do them
honour. Tunnachemootoolt, Black Eagle, spread his
leather tent and laid a parcel of wood at the door.
" Make this your lodge while you remain with me."
Hohastilpilp, Red Wolf, came riding over the hills with
fifty people.
The Captains had a fire lighted, and all night in the
leather tent on the banks of the Kooskooske the chiefs
smoked and pondered on the journey of the white men.
Lewis and Clark drew maps and pointed out the far
away land of the President. Sacajawea and the Sho-
shone boy interpreted until worn out, and then fell asleep.
And ever within Black Eagle's village was heard the dull
" thud, thud, thud," of Nez Perce women pounding the
camas and the kouse, " with noise like a nail-factory,"
said Lewis. All night long their outdoor ovens were
baking the bread of kouse, and the kettles of camas mush,
flavoured with yamp, simmered and sweetened over the
dull red Indian fires. The hungry men were not dis
posed to criticise the cuisine of the savage, not even when
they were offered the dainty flesh of dried rattlesnake!
Labiche killed a bear. In amazement the redmen gath
ered round.
" These bears are tremendous animals to the Indians,
— kill all you can," said Captain Lewis. Elated, every
hunter went bear-hunting.
" Wonderful men that live on bears ! " exclaimed the
Indians.
Again the council was renewed, and they talked of
wars. Bloody Chief, fond of war, showed wounds re
ceived in battle with the Snakes.
18
274 THE CONQUEST
" It is not good," said Clark. " It is better to be at
peace. Here is a white flag. When you hold it up it
means peace. We have given such flags to your enemies,
the Shoshones. They will not fight you now."
Fifty years later, that chief, tottering to his grave, said,
" I held that flag. I held it up high. We met and talked,
but never fought again."
" We have confided in the white men. We shall follow
their advice," Black Eagle went proclaiming through the
village.
All the kettles of soup were boiling. From kettle to
kettle Black Eagle sprinkled in the flour of kouse. " We
have confided in the white men. Those who are
to ratify this council, come and eat. All others stay
away."
The mush was done, the feast was served ; a new dawn
had arisen on the Nez Perces.
Finding it impossible to cross the mountains, a camp
was established at Kamiah Creek, on a part of the present
Nez Perce reservation in Idaho county, Idaho, where
for a month they studied this amiable and gentle people.
Games were played and races run, Coalter outspeeding
all. Frazer, who had been a fencing master in Rutland,
back in Vermont, taught tricks, and the music of the fid
dles delighted them.
Stout, portly, good-looking men were the Nez Perces,
and better dressed than most savages, in their whitened
tunics and leggings of deerskin and buffalo, moccasins
and robes and breastplates of otter, and bandeaus of fox-
skins like a turban on the brow. The women were small,
of good features and generally handsome, in neatly woven
tight-fitting grass caps and long buckskin skirts whitened
with clay.
Upon the Missouri the eagle was domesticated. Here,
too, the Nez Perce had his wicker coop of young eaglets
to raise for their tail feathers. Any Rocky Mountain
Indian would give a good horse for the black-and-white
tail feather of a golden eagle. They fluttered from the
calumet and hung in cascades from head to foot on- the
sacred war bonnet.
CAMP CHOPUNNISH 275
A May snowstorm whitened the camas meadows and
melted again. Thick black loam invited the plough, but
thirty Springs should pass before Spalding established
his mission and gave ploughs to the redmen. Twisted
Hair saw the advent of civilisation. Red Wolf planted
an orchard. Black Eagle went to see Clark at St. Louis
and died there.
Captain Lewis held councils, instructing, educating,
enlightening the Kamiahs, so that to this day they are
among the most advanced of Indian tribes.
Captain Clark, with simple remedies and some knowl
edge of medicine, became a mighty "tomanowos" among
the ailing. With basilicons of pitch and oil, wax and
resins, a sovereign remedy for skin eruptions, with horse-
mint teas and doses of sulphur and cream-of-tartar, with
eye-water, laudanum, and liniment, he treated all sorts
of ills. Fifty patients a day crowded to the tent of the
Red Head. Women suffering from rheumatism, the re
sult of toil and exposure in the damp camas fields, came
dejected and hysterical. They went back shouting, " The
Red Head chief has made me well."
The wife of a chief had an abscess. Clark lanced it,
and she slept for the first time in days. The grateful
chief brought him a horse that was immediately slaugh
tered for supper. A father gave a horse in exchange for
remedies for his little crippled daughter.
W7ith exposure to winds, alkali sand, and the smoke
of chimneyless fires, few Indians survived to old age
without blindness.
" Eye-water ! Eye-water ! " They reached for it as
for a gift from the gods. Clark understood such eyes,
for the smoke of the pioneer cabin had made affections
of the eye a curse of the frontier.
But affairs were now at their lowest. Even the medi
cines were exhausted, and the last awl, needle, and skein
of thread had gone. Off their shabby old United States
uniforms the soldiers cut the last buttons to trade for
bread. But instead of trinkets the sensible Nez Perces
desired knives, buttons, awls for making moccasins,
blankets, kettles. Shields the gunsmith ingeniously
276 THE CONQUEST
hammered links of Drouillard's trap into awls to ex
change for bread.
The tireless hunters scoured the country. Farther and
farther had scattered the game. Even the bears had de
parted. Thirty-three people ate a deer and an elk, or
four deer a day. There was no commissariat for this
little army but its own rifles. And yet, supplies must
be laid in for crossing the mountains.
Every day Captain Lewis looked at the rising river
and the melting snows of the Idaho Alps.
' That icy barrier, which separates me from my friends
and my country, from all which makes life estimable —
patience — patience — ':
" The snow is yet deep on the mountains. You will
not be able to pass them until the next full moon, or about
the first of June," said the Indians.
" Unwelcome intelligence to men confined to a diet of
horse meat and roots ! " exclaimed Captain Lewis.
Finally even horse-flesh failed. Suspecting the situa
tion, Chief Red Wolf came and said, " The horses on
these hills are ours. Take what you need."
He wore a tippet of human scalps, but, says Lewis,
" we have, indeed, on more than one occasion, had to
admire the generosity of this Indian, whose conduct pre
sents a model of what is due to strangers in distress."
Gradually the snows melted, and the high water
subsided.
' The doves are cooing. The salmon will come," said
the Indians. Blue flowers of the blooming camas cov
ered the prairies like a lake of silver. With sixty-five
horses and all the dried horse meat they could carry, on
June 1 6, 18065 Lewis and Clark started back over the
Bitter Root Range on the Lolo trail by which they had
entered.
OVER THE BITTER ROOT RANGE 277
XXIV
OVER THE BITTER ROOT RANGE
DOG-TOOTH violets, roses, and strawberry blos
soms covered the plain of Weippe without end,
but the Lolo trail was deep with snow. Deep and
deeper grew the drifts, twelve and fifteen feet. The air
was keen and cold with winter rigours. To go on in
those grassless valleys meant certain death to all their
horses, and so, for the first time, they fell back to wait
yet other days for the snows to melt upon the mountains.
" We must have experienced guides." Drouillard and
Shannon were dispatched once more to the old camp,
and lo ! the salmon had come, in schools and shoals, red
dening the Kooskooskee with their flickering fins.
Again they faced the snowy barrier with guides who
traversed the trackless region with instinctive sureness.
* They never hesitate," said Lewis. ;' They are never
embarrassed. So undeviating is their step that whenever
the snow has disappeared, even for a hundred paces, we
find the summer road."
Up in the Bitter Root peaks, like the chamois of the
Alps, the Oregon mazama, the mountain goat, frolicked
amid inaccessible rocks. And there, in the snows of the
mountain pass, most significant of all, were found the
tracks of barefooted Indians, supposed to have been Flat-
heads, fleeing in distress from pursuing Blackfeet. Such
was the battle of primitive man.
The Indians regarded the journey of the white men
into the country of their hereditary foes as a venture to
certain death.
"Danger!" whispered the guides, significantly rap
ping on their heads, drawing their knives across their
throats, and pointing far ahead.
Every year the Nez Perces followed the Lolo trail,
stony and steep and ridgy with rocks and crossed with
278 THE CONQUEST
fallen trees, into the Buffalo Illahee, the buffalo country
of the Missouri. And for this the Blackfeet fought them.
The Blackfeet, too, had been from time immemorial
the deadly foe of the Flatheads, their bone of contention
for ever the buffalo. The Blackfeet claimed. as their own
all the country lying east of the main range, and looked
upon the Flatheads who went there to hunt as intruders.
The Flathead country was west and at the base of the
main Rockies, along the Missoula and Clark's Fork and
northward to the Fraser. With their sole weapon, the
arrow, and their own undaunted audacity, twice a year
occurred the buffalo chase, once in Summer and once in
Winter. But " the ungodly Blackfeet," scourge of the
mountains, lay in wait to trap and destroy the Flatheads
as they would a herd of buffalo.
And so it had been war, bitter war, for ages. But a
new force had given to the Blackfeet at the west and
the Sioux at the east supremacy over the rest of the tribes,
— that was the white man's gun from the British forts
on the Saskatchewan.
For spoils and scalps the Blackfeet, Arabs of the
North, raided from the Saskatchewan to Mexico. They
besieged Fort Edmonton at the north, and left their toma
hawk mark on the Digger Indian's grave at the south.
The Shoshone-Snakes, too, were immemorial and implac
able enemies of both the Blackfeet and the Columbia
tribes. They fought to the Dalles and Walla Walla and
up through the Nez Perces to Spokane. Their mad
raiders threw up the dust of the Utah desert, and chased
the lone Aztec to his last refuge in Arizona cliffs.
The Blackfeet fought the Shoshones, the Crows, by
superior cunning, fought the Blackfeet, the Assiniboines
fought the Crows, and the Sioux, the lordly Sioux,
fought all.
It was time for the white man's hand to stay the diabol
ical dance of death.
BEWARE THE BLACKFEET! 279
XXV
BEWARE THE BLACKFEET!
ON the third of July, at the mouth of Lolo creek,
the expedition separated, Lewis to cross to the
Falls of the Missouri and explore Marias River,
Clark to come to the three forks and cross to the Yellow
stone.
With nine men and five Indians Captain Lewis crossed
the Missoula on a raft, and following the Nez Perce
trail along the River-of-the-Road-to-Buffalo, the Big
Blackfoot of to-day, came out July 7, the first of white
men, on the opening through the main range of the
Rockies now known as the Lewis and Clark Pass. A
Blackfoot road led down to the churning waters of the
Great Falls.
Pawing, fighting, ten thousand buffaloes were bellow
ing in one continuous roar that terrified the horses. The
plain was black with a vast and angry army, bearing
away to the southwest, flinging the dust like a simoom,
through which deep-mouthed clangor rolled like thunder
far away. And at their immediate feet, Drouillard noted
fresh tracks of Indians dotting the soil ; grizzly bears,
grim guardians of the cataract, emitted hollow growls,
and great gray wolves hung in packs and droves along
the skirts of the buffalo herds, glancing now and then
toward the little group of horsemen.
In very defiance of danger, again Lewis pitched his
camp beside the Falls, green and foamy as Niagara.
Again buffalo meat, marrow bones, ribs, steaks, juicy
and rich, sizzled around the blaze, and the hungry men
ate, ate, ate. They had found the two extremes — want
on one side of the mountains and abundance on the
other.
While Lewis tried to write in his journal, huge brown
mosquitoes, savage as the bears, bit and buzzed. Lewis's
28o THE CONQUEST
dog howled with the torture, the same little Assiniboine
dog that had followed all their footsteps, had guarded
and hunted as well as the best, had slept by the fire at
Clatsop and been stolen at the Dalles.
Hurrying to their cache at the Bear Islands, it was
discovered that high water had flooded their skins and
the precious specimens of plants were soaked and ruined.
A bottle of laudanum had spoiled a chestful of medicine.
But the charts of the Missouri remained uninjured, and
trunks, boxes, carriage wheels, and blunderbuss were all
right.
:< Transport the baggage around the Falls and wait
for me at the mouth of Maria's River to the first of Sep
tember," said Captain Lewis, setting out with Drouillard
and the Fields boys. " If by that time I am not there, go
on and join Captain Clark and return home. But if my
life and health are spared, I shall meet you on the 5th of
August."
It was not without misgivings that Sergeant Gass and
his comrades saw the gallant Captain depart into the
hostile Blackfoot country. With only three men at his
back it was a daring venture. Already the five Nez
Perces, fearful of their foes, had dropped off to seek their
friends the Flatheads. In vain Lewis had promised to
intercede and make peace between the tribes. Their
terror pf the Blackfeet surpassed their confidence in white
men.
" Look ! "
On the second day out Drouillard suddenly pointed,
and leaning far over on his horse, examined a trail that
would have escaped an eye less keen than his. " Black-
feet ! " the vicious and profligate rovers that of all it was
most desirable not to meet!
Hastily crossing the Teton into a thick wood, the party
camped that night unmolested.
On the eighth day Captain Lewis suddenly spied several
Indians on a hilltop intently watching Drouillard in the
valley. Thirty horses, some led, some saddled, stood like
silhouettes against the sky. Kneeling they scanned the
movements of the unconscious hunter below.
BEWARE THE BLACKFEET! 281
" Escape is impossible. We must make the most of
our situation. If they attempt to rob us, we will resist to
the last extremity. I would rather die than lose my
papers and instruments."
Boldly advancing with a flag in his hand, followed by
the two Fields brothers, Lewis drew quite near before
the Indians perceived these other white men. Terrified,
they ran about in confusion. Evidently with them a
stranger meant a foe.
Captain Lewis dismounted, and held out his hand.
Slowly the chief Blackfoot approached, then wheeled
in flight. At last, with extreme caution, the two parties
met and shook hands. Lewis gave to one a 'flag, to an
other a medal, to a third a handkerchief. The tumultuous
beating of the Indians' hearts could almost be heard.
There proved to be but eight of them, armed with two
guns, bows, arrows, and eye-daggs, a sort of war-hatchet.
" I am glad to see you," said Lewis. " I have much
to say. Let us camp together."
The Indians assented and set up their semi-circular
tent by the willows of the river. Here Drouillard, the
hunter, skilled in the sign language of redmen, drew
out their story.
Yes, they knew white men. They traded on the Sas
katchewan six days' march away.
Yes, there were more of them, two large bands, on the
forks of this river, a day above.
What did they trade at the Saskatchewan? Skins,
wolves, and beaver, for guns and ammunition.
Then Lewis talked. He came from the rising sun.
He had been to the great lake at the west. He had seen
many nations at war and had made peace. He had
stopped to make peace between the Blackfeet and the
Flatheads.
" We are anxious for peace with the Flatheads. But
those people have lately killed a number of our relatives
and we are in mourning."
Yes, they would come down and trade with Lewis if
he built a fort at Maria's River.
Until a late hour they smoked, then slept. Lewis and
282 THE CONQUEST
Drouillard lay down and slept with the Indians, while
the two Fields boys kept guard by the fire at the door of
the tent.
" Let go my gun."
It was the voice of Drouillard in the half-light of the
tent at sunrise struggling with a Blackfoot. With a start
Lewis awoke and reached for his gun. It was gone. The
deft thieves had all but disarmed the entire party.
Chase followed. In the scuffle for his gun, Reuben
Fields stabbed a Blackfoot to the heart.
No sooner were the guns recovered than the horses
were gone. " Leave the horses or I will shoot," shouted
Lewis, chasing out of breath to a steep notch in the river
bluffs. Madly the Indians were tearing away with the
horses. Lewis fired and killed a Blackfoot. Bareheaded,
the Captain felt a returning bullet whistle through his
hair, but the Indians dropped the horses, and away went
swimming across the Marias.
Delay meant death. Quickly saddlirig their horses,
Lewis and his men made for the Missouri as fast as pos
sible, hearing at every step in imagination the pursuing
"hoo-oh! whoop-ah-hooh ! " that was destined to make
Marias River the scene of many a bloody massacre by the
vengeful Blackfeet.
Expecting interception at the mouth of Marias River,
the white men rode with desperation to form a junction
with their friends. All day, all night they galloped, until,
exhausted, they halted at two o'clock in the morning to
rest their flagging horses.
That forenoon, having ridden one hundred and twenty
miles since the skirmish, they reached the mouth of
Marias River, just in time to see Sergeant Gass, the fleet
of canoes, and all, descending from above. Leaping from
their horses, they took to the boats, and soon left the spot,
seventy, eighty, a hundred miles a day, down the swift
Missouri/
DOWN THE YELLOWSTONE 283
XXVI
DOWN THE YELLOWSTONE
AS Lewis turned north toward Marias River, Clark
with the rest of the party and fifty horses set his
face along the Bitter Root Valley toward the
south. Every step he trod became historic ground in
the romance of settlement, wars, and gold. Into this
Bitter Root Valley were to come the first white settlers
of Montana, and upon them, through the Hell Gate Pass
of the Rockies, above the present Missoula, were to sweep
again and again the bloodthirsty Blackfeet.
" It is as safe to enter the gates of hell as to enter that
pass/' said the old trappers and traders.
More and more beautiful became the valley, pink as a
rose with the delicate bloom of the bitter-root, the May
flower of Montana. Here for ages the patient Flatheads
had dug and dried their favourite root until the whole
valley was a garden.
As Clark's cavalcade wound through this vale, deer
flitted before the riders, multitudinous mountain streams
leaped across their way, herds of bighorns played around
the snowbanks on the heights. Across an intervening
ridge the train descended into Ross Hole, where first
they met the Flatheads. There were signs of recent
occupation; a fire was still burning; but the Flatheads
were gone.
Out of Ross Hole Sacajawea pointed the way by
Clark's Pass3 over the Continental Divide, to the Big
Hole River where the trail disappeared or scattered. But
Sacajawea knew the spot. " Here my people gather the
kouse and the camas ; here we take the beaver ; and
yonder, see, a door in the mountains."
On her little pony, with her baby on her back, the
placid Indian girl led the way into the labyrinthine
Rockies.
284 THE CONQUEST
Clark followed, descending into the beautiful Big Hole
prairie, where in 1877 a great battle was to be fought
with Chief Joseph, exactly one hundred years after the
1777 troubles, when George Rogers Clark laid before
Patrick Henry his plan for the capture of Illinois. Out
of the Big Hole, Chief Joseph was to escape with his
women, his children, and his dead, to be chased a thou
sand miles over the very summit of the Rockies !
Standing there on the field of future battle, " On
ward ! " still urged Sacajawea, " the gap there leads to
your canoes!" The Bird Woman knew these highlands,
- they were her native hills. As Sacajawea fell back,
the men turned their horses at a gallop.
Almost could they count the milestones now, down
Willard creek, where first paying gold was discovered in
Montana, past Shoshone cove, over the future site of
Bannock to the Jefferson.
Scarcely taking the saddles from their steeds, the eager
men ran to open the cache hid from the Shoshones. To
those who so long had practised self-denial it meant
food, clothing, merchandise — an Indian ship in the
wild. Everything was safe, goods, canoes, tobacco. In
a trice the long-unused pipes were smoking with the
weed of old Virginia.
" Better than any Injun red-wilier k'nick-er-k'nick ! "
said Coalter, the hunter.
Leaving Sergeant Pryor with six men to bring on the
horses, Captain Clark and the rest embarked in the
canoes, and were soon gliding down the emerald Jef
ferson, along whose banks for sixty years no change
should come.
Impetuous mountain streams, calmed to the placid
pool of the beaver dam, widened into lakes and marshes.
Beaver, otter, musk-rats innumerable basked along the
shore. Around the boats all night the disturbed deni
zens flapped the water with their tails, — angry at the
invasion of their solitude.
At the Three Forks, Clark's pony train remounted
for the Yellowstone, prancing and curveting along the
beaver-populated dells of the Gallatin.
DOWN THE YELLOWSTONE 285
Before them arose, bewildering, peak on peak, but
again the Bird Woman, Sacajawea, pointed out the Yel
lowstone Gap, the Bozeman Pass of to-day, on the great
Shoshone highway. Many a summer had Sacajawea,
child of elfin locks, ridden on the trailing travoises
through this familiar gateway into the buffalo haunts of
Yellowstone Park.
Slowly Clark and his expectant cavalcade mounted the
Pass, where for ages the buffalo and the Indian alone had
trod. As they reached the summit, the glorious Yellow
stone Alps burst on their view. At their feet a rivulet,
born on the mountain top, leaped away, bright and clear,
over its gravelly bed to the Yellowstone in the plains
below.
It was the brother of George Rogers Clark that stood
there, one to the manner born of riding great rivers or
breaking through mountain chains. But thirty years had
elapsed since that elder brother and Daniel Boone had
threaded the Cumberland Gap of the Alleghanies. The
highways of the buffalo became the highways of the
nation.
1 1 It is no more than eighteen miles," said Clark, glanc
ing back from the high snowy gap, half piercing, half
surmounting the dividing ridge between the Missouri
and the Yellowstone, so nearly do their headwaters in
terlock. In coming up this pass, Clark's party went
through the present city limits of Bozeman, the county
seat of Gallatin, and over the route of future Indians,
trappers, miners, road builders, and last and greatest
of all, armies of permanent occupation that are march
ing still to the valleys of fertile Montana. Up the
shining Yellowstone, over the Belt range, through the
tunnel to Bozeman, the iron horse flits to-day, on, west
erly one hundred miles to Helena, almost in the exact
footsteps trodden by the heroic youth of one hundred
years ago.
Among the cottonwood groves of the Yellowstone,
Clark's men quickly fashioned a pair of dugouts, lashed
together with rawhide; and in these frail barks, twenty-
eight feet long, the Captain and party embarked, leav-
286 THE CONQUEST
ing Sergeant Pryor, Shannon, Windsor, and Hall to
bring on the horses. All manner of trouble Pryor had
with those horses. Lame from continual travel, he made
moccasins for their feet. They were buffalo runners,
trained for the hunt. At sight of the Yellowstone herds
away they flew, to chase in the old wild Indian fashion
of their red masters. No sooner had Pryor rounded them
up and brought them back than they disappeared utterly,
— stolen by the Crows. Not one of the entire fifty horses
was ever recovered.
Here was a serious predicament. Down the impetu
ous Yellowstone Clark's boats had already gone. Alone
in the heart of the buffalo country these four men were
left, thousands of miles from the haunts of civilised man.
" We must join Captain Clark at all hazards. We
must improvise boats," said Shannon.
Sergeant Pryor recalled the Welsh coracles of the
Mandans. " Can we make one? "
Long slim saplings were bent to form a hoop for the
rim, another hoop held by cross-sticks served for the
bottom. Over this rude basket green buffalo hides
were tightly drawn, and in these frail craft they took
to the water, close in the wake of their unconscious
Captain.
And meanwhile Clark was gliding down the Yellow
stone. On either bank buffaloes dotted the landscape,
under the shade of trees and standing in the water like
cattle, or browsing on a thousand hills. Gangs of stately
elk, light troops of sprightly antelopes, fleet and grace
ful as the gazelle of Oriental song, deer of slim elastic
beauty, and even bighorns that could be shot from the
boat. Sometimes were heard the booming subterranean
geysers hidden in the hollows of the mountains, but none
in the party yet conceived of the wonders of Yellow
stone Park that Coalter came back to discover that same
Autumn.
One day Clark landed to examine a remarkable rock.
Its sides were carved with Indian figures, and a cairn
was heaped upon the summit. Stirred by he knew not
what impulse, Clark named it Pompey's Pillar, and
DOWN THE YELLOWSTONE 287
carved his name upon the yielding sandstone, where his
bold lettering is visible yet to-day.
More and more distant each day grew the Rockies,
etched fainter each night on the dim horizon of the west.
More and more numerous grew the buffaloes, delaying
the boats with their countless herds stampeding across the
Yellowstone. For an hour one day the boats waited,
the wide river blackened by their backs, and before night
two other herds, as numerous as the first, came beating
across the yellow-brown tide.
But more than buffaloes held sway on the magic Yel
lowstone. Wrapped in their worn-out blankets the men
could not sleep for the scourge of mosquitoes ; they could
not sight their rifles for the clouds of moving, whizzing,
buzzing, biting insects. Even the buffalo were stifled by
them in their nostrils.
Nine hundred miles now had they come down the Yel
lowstone, to its junction with the Missouri half a mile
east of the Montana border, but no sign yet had they
found of Lewis. Clark wrote on the sand, " W. C. A
few miles further down on the right hand side."
August 8, Sergeant Pryor and his companions ap
peared in their little skin tubs. Four days later, there
was a shout and waving of caps, — the boats of Cap
tain Lewis came in sight at noon. But a moment later
every cheek blanched with alarm.
"Where is Captain Lewis?" demanded Clark, run
ning forward.
There in the bottom of a canoe, Lewis lay as one dead,
pale but smiling. He had been shot. With the gentle
ness of a brother Clark lifted him up, and they carried
him to camp.
" A mistake, — an accident, — 't is nothing," he whis
pered.
And then the story leaked out. Cruzatte, one-eyed,
near-sighted, mistaking Lewis in his dress of brown
leather for an elk, had shot him through the thigh. With
the assistance of Patrick Gass, Lewis had dressed the
wound himself. On account of- great pain and high
fever he slept that night in the boat. And now the party
were happily reunited.
288 THE CONQUEST
XXVII
THE HOME STRETCH
IN the distance there was a gleam of coloured blankets
where the beehive huts of the Mandan village lay. A
firing of guns and the blunderbuss brought Black Cat
to the boats.
" Come and eat." And with the dignity of an old
Roman, the chief extended his hand.
" Come and eat," was the watchword of every chieftain
on the Missouri. Even the Sioux said, " Come and eat ! "
Hospitable as Arabs, they spread the buffalo robe and
brought the pipe. While the officers talked with the
master of the lodge, the silent painstaking squaws put
the kettles on the fire, and slaughtered the fatted dog for
the honoured guests.
" How many chiefs will accompany us to Washing
ton? " That was the first inquiry of the business-pushing
white men. Through Jussaume the Indians answered.
" I would go," said the Black Cat, " but de Sioux -
" De Sioux will certainly kill us," said Le Borgne of
the Minnetarees. " Dey are waiting now to intercept
you on de river. Dey will cut you off."
" We stay at home. We listen to your counsel," piped
up Little Cherry. " But dey haf stolen our horses. Dey
haf scalp our people."
" We must fight to protect ourselves," added the Black
Cat. "We live in peace wit' all nation -- 'cept de
Sioux ! "
In vain Captain Clark endeavoured to quiet their ap
prehensions. " We shall not suffer the Sioux to injure
one of our red children."
" I pledge my government that a company of armed
men shall guard you on your return," added Lewis.
At this point Jussaume reported that Shahaka, or Big
White, in his wish to see the President, had overcome his
fears. He would go to Washington.
THE HOME STRETCH 289
Six feet tall, of magnificent presence, with hair white
and coarse as a horse's mane, Shahaka, of all the chiefs,
was the one to carry to the States the tradition of a white
admixture in the Mandan blood. " The handsomest
Injun I iver saw," said Patrick Gass.
Arrangements for departure were now made as rapidly
as possible. Presents of corn, beans, and squashes, more
than all the boats could carry, were piled around the white
men's camp.
The blacksmith's tools were intrusted to Charboneau
for the use of the Mandans. The blunderbuss, given to
the Minnetarees, was rolled away to their village with
great exultation.
" Now let the Sioux come! " It was a challenge and
a refuge.
The iron corn mill was nowhere to be seen. For
scarcely had Lewis and Clark turned their backs for the
upper Missouri before it had been broken into bits to barb
the Indian arrows.
Sacajawea looked wistfully. She, too, would like to
visit the white man's country.
" We will take you and your wife down if you choose
to go," said Captain Clark to Charboneau.
" I haf no acquaintance, no prospect to mak' a leaving
dere," answered the interpreter. " I mus' leeve as I haf
done."
" I will take your son and have him educated as a white
child should be," continued the Captain.
Charboneau and Sacajawea looked at one another and
at their beautiful boy now nineteen months old, prattling
in their midst.
" We would be weeling eef de child were weaned,"
slowly spake Charboneau. " Een wan year,- he be ole
enough to leaf he moder. I den tak' eem to you eef you
be so friendly to raise eem as you t'ink proper."
" Bring him to me in one year. I will take the child,"
said Captain Clark.
Captain Lewis paid Charboneau five hundred dollars,
loaded Sacajawea with what gifts he could, and left them
in the Mandan country.
290 THE CONQUEST
All was now ready for the descent to St. Louis. The
boats, lashed together in pairs, were at the shore. Big
White was surrounded by his friends, seated in a circle,
solemnly smoking. The women wept aloud; the little
children trembled and hid behind their mothers.
More courageous than any, Shahaka immediately sent
his wife and son with their baggage on board. The inter
preter, Jussaume, with his wife and two children, accom
panied them. Yes, Madame Jussaume was going to
Washington !
Sacajawea, modest princess of the Shoshones, heroine
of the great expedition, stood with her babe in arms
and smiled upon them from the shore. So had she
stood in the Rocky Mountains pointing out the gates.
So had she followed the great rivers, navigating the
continent.
Sacajawea's hair was neatly braided, her nose was
fine and straight, and her skin pure copper like the statue
in some old Florentine gallery. Madonna of her race,
she had led the way to a new time. To the hands of this
girl, not yet eighteen, had been intrusted the key that
unlocked the road to Asia.
Some day upon the Bozeman Pass, Sacajawea's statue
will stand beside that of Clark. Some day, where the
rivers part, her laurels will vie with those of Lewis.
Across North America a Shoshone Indian Princess
touched hands with Jefferson, opening her country.
All the chiefs had gathered to see the boats start.
" Stay but one moment," they said.
Clark stepped back. Black Cat handed him a pipe, as
if for benediction. The solemn smoke-wreaths soon
rolled upward.
" Tell our Great Fader de young men will remain at
home and not mak' war on any people, except in self-
defence."
" Tell de Rickara to come and visit. We mean no
harm."
" Tak' good care dis chief. He will bring word from
de Great Fader."
It was a promise and a prayer. Strong chiefs turned
THE HOME STRETCH 291
away with misgiving and trepidation as they saw Shahaka
depart with the white men.
Dropping below their old winter quarters at Fort Man-
dan, Lewis and Clark saw but a row of pickets left. The
houses lay in ashes, destroyed by an accidental fire. All
were there for the homeward pull but Coalter. He had
gone back with Hancock and Dickson, two adventurers
from Boone's settlement, to discover the Yellowstone
Park.
On the fourth day out three Frenchmen were met ap
proaching the Mandan nation with the message, -
" Seven hundert Sioux haf pass de Rickara to mak'
war on de Mandan an' Minnetaree/' Fortunately, Sha
haka did not understand, and no one told him.
The Arikara village greeted the passing boats. Lewis,
still lame, requested Clark to go up to the village. Like
children confessing their misdeeds the Arikaras began :
" We cannot keep the peace ! Our young men follow
the Sioux ! "
The wild Cheyennes, with their dogs and horses and
handsome leathern lodges, were here on a trading visit,
to exchange with the Arikaras meat and robes for corn
and beans. They were a noble race, of straight limbs
and Roman noses, unaccustomed to the whites, shy and
cautious.
" We war against none but the Sioux, with whom we
have battled for ever," they said.
Everywhere there was weeping and mourning. " My
son, my son, he has been slain by the Sioux ! "
Between the lands of the warring nations surged seas
of buffalo, where to-day are the waving bonanza wheat
fields of North Dakota.
From an eminence Clark looked over the prairies.
" More buffalo than ever I have seen before at one time,"
- and he had seen many. " If it be not impossible to
calculate the moving multitude that darkens the plains,
twenty thousand would be no exaggerated estimate."
They were now well into the country of the great
Sioux Indian Confederacy. Arms and ammunition were
inspected.
292 THE CONQUEST
The sharp air thrilled and filled them with new vigour.
No wonder the Sioux were never still. The ozone of
the Arctic was in their veins, the sweeping winds drove
them, the balsamic prairie was their bed, the sky their
canopy. They never shut themselves up in stuffy mud
huts, as did the Mandans; they lived in tents. Unre
strained, unregenerate, there was in them the fire of the
Six Nations, of King Philip and of Pontiac. Tall, hand
some, finely formed, agile, revengeful, intelligent, capable,
— they loved their country and they hated stranger s<
So did the Greeks. An effeminate nation would have
fallen before them as did the Roman before the Goth, but
in the Anglo-Saxon they met their master.
" Whoop-ah-ho-o-oh ! "
As anticipated, Black Buffalo and his pirate band were
on the hills. Whether that fierce cry meant defiance or
greeting no man could tell.
" Whoop-ah-ho-o-oh ! "
The whole band rushed down to the shore, and even
out into the water, shouting invitations to land, and
waving from the sand-banks.
But too fresh in memory was the attempt to carry off
Captain Clark. Jubilant, hopeful, and full of the fire of
battle as the white men were, yet no one wished to test
the prowess of the Sioux.
Unwilling to venture an interview, the boats continued
on their way. Black Buffalo shook his war bonnet defi
antly, and returning to the hill smote the earth three times
with the butt of his rifle, the registration of a mighty oath
against the whites.
Leaving behind them a wild brandishing of bows,
arrows, and tomahawks, and an atmosphere filled with
taunts, insults, and imprecations, the boats passed out of
sight.
Wafted on the wind followed that direful " Whoop-
ah-ho-o-oh ! " ending with the piercing shrill Indian yell
that for sixty years froze the earliest life blood of Min
nesota and Dakota.
Here in the land of the Teton Sioux was to be planted
the future Fort Rice, where exactly sixty years after
THE HOME STRETCH 293
Lewis and Clark, there crossed the Missouri one of the
most powerful, costly, and best equipped expeditions ever
sent out against hostile Indians, — four thousand cavalry,
eight hundred mounted infantry, twelve pieces of artillery,
three hundred government teams, three hundred beef
steers, and fifteen steamboats to carry supplies, — to be
joined here on the Fourth of July, 1864, by an emigrant
train of one hundred and sixty teams and two hundred
and fifty people, — the van guard of Montana settlement.
The Sioux were defeated in the Bad Lands, and the emi
grants were carried safely through to Helena, where they
and their descendants live to-day.
Already sweeping up the Missouri, Lewis and Clark
met advancing empire. Near Vermilion River, James
Aird was camping with a license to trade among the
Sioux.
" What is the news from St. Louis?"
There on the borders of a future great State, Lewis
and Clark first heard that Burr and Hamilton had fought
a duel and Hamilton was killed; that three hundred
American troops were cantoned at Bellefontaine, a new
log fort on the Missouri ; that Spain had taken a United
States frigate on the Mediterranean; that two British
ships of war had fired on an American ship in the port
of New York, killing the Captain's brother.
Great was the indignation in the United States against
Jefferson and the impressment of American seamen.
" The money spent for Louisiana would have been
much better used in building fighting ships."
" The President had much better be protecting our
rights than cutting up animals and stuffing the skins of
dead raccoons."
"Where is our national honour? Gone, abandoned
on the Mississippi."
And these coureurs on the Mississippi heard that the
conflict foreseen by Napoleon, when he gave us Louisi
ana, was raging now in all its fury, interdicting the com
merce of the world.
To their excited ears the river rushed and rocked, the
earth rumbled, with the roar of cannon. To themselves
294 THE CONQUEST
Lewis and Clark seemed a very small part of the forces
that make and unmake nations, — and yet that expe
dition meant more to the world than the field of Waterloo !
The next noon, on ascending the hill of Floyd's Bluff
they found the Indians had opened the grave of their com
rade. Reverently it was filled again.
Home from the buffalo hunt in the plains of the Ne
braska, the Omahas were firing guns to signal their return
to gather in their harvest of corn, beans, and pumpkins.
Keel boats, barges, and bateaux came glistening into
view, — Auguste Chouteau with merchandise to trade
with the Yanktons, another Chouteau to the Platte, a
trader with two men to the Pawnee Loupes, and Joseph
La Croix with seven men bound for the Omahas.
Through the lessening distance Clark recognised on
one of the barges his old comrade, Robert McClellan, the
wonderful scout of Wayne's army, who had ridden on
many an errand of death. Since Wayne's victory Mc
Clellan had been a ranger still, but now the Indians were
quieting down, — all except Tecumseh.
* The country has long since given you up," he told
the Captain. " We have word from Jefferson to seek for
news of Lewis and Clark. The general opinion in the
United States is that you are lost in the unfathomable
depths of the continent. But President Jefferson has
hopes. The last heard of you was at the Mandan villages."
With a laugh they listened to their own obituaries. On
the same barge with McClellan was Gravelines with
orders from Jefferson to instruct the Arikaras in agri
culture, and Dorion to help make way through the Sioux.
" Brave Raven, the Arikara chief, died in Washing
ton," said Gravelines. " I am on my way to them with
a speech from the President and the presents which have
been made to the chief."
How home now tugged at their heart strings ! Eager
to be on the way, they bade farewell to McClellan.
Down, down they shot along, wind, current, and paddle
in their favour, past shores where the freebooting Kansas
Indians robbed the traders, past increasing forests of
walnut, elm, oak, hickory.
THE HOME STRETCH 295
The men were now reduced to a biscuit apiece. Wild
turkeys gobbled on shore, but the party paused not a
moment to hunt.
On the twentieth a mighty shout went up. They heard
the clank of cow bells, and saw tame cattle feeding on the
hills of Charette, the home of Daniel Boone. With cheers
and firing of guns they landed at the village.
" We are indeet astonished/' exclaimed the joyful habi
tants, grasping their hands. " You haf been given up for
det long tarn since." The men were scattered among the
families for the night, honoured guests of Charette.
" Plaintee tarn we wish ourself back on ole San Loui',"
said Cruzatte to his admiring countrymen.
To their surprise Lewis and Clark found new settle
ments all the way down from Charette. September 21,
firing a tremendous salute from the old stone tower be
hind the huts, all St. Charles paid tribute to the Homeric
heroes who had wandered farther than Ulysses and slain
more monsters than Hercules.
Just above the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi
Rivers loomed the fresh mud chimneys of the new log
Fort Bellefontaine, Colonel Thomas Hunt in command,
and Dr. Saugrain, surgeon, appointed by Jefferson.
The Colonel's pretty little daughter, Abby Hunt, looked
up in admiration at Lewis and Clark, and followed all
day these " Indian white men " from the north. Forty
years after she told the story of that arrival. " They
wore dresses of deerskin, fringed and worked with por
cupine quills, something between a military undress frock
coat and an Indian shirt, with leggings and moccasins,
three-cornered cocked hats and long beards."
Standing between the centuries in that log fort on the
Missouri, pretty little Abby Hunt herself was destined to
become historic, as the wife of Colonel Snelling and the
mother of the first white child born in Minnesota.
After an early breakfast with Colonel Hunt, the expe
dition set out for the last stretch homeward. They
rounded out of the Missouri into the Mississippi, and
pulled up to St. Louis at noon, Tuesday, September 23,
1806, after an absence of nearly two years and a half.
296 THE CONQUEST
XXVIII
THE OLD STONE FORTS OF ST. LOUIS
IT was noon when Lewis and Clark sighted the old
stone forts of the Spanish time. Never had that fron
tier site appeared so noble, rising on a vast terrace
from the rock-bound river.
As the white walls burst on their view, with simul
taneous movement every man levelled his rifle. The
Captains smiled and gave the signal, — the roar of
thirty rifles awoke the echoes from the rocks.
Running down the stony path to the river came the
whole of St. Louis, — eager, meagre, little Frenchmen,
tanned and sallow and quick of gait, smaller than the
Americans, but graceful and gay, with a heartfelt wel
come; black-eyed French women in camasaks and ker
chiefs, dropping their trowels in their neat little gardens
where they had been delving among the hollyhocks ; gay
little French children in red petticoats; and here and
there a Kentuckian, lank and lean, eager, — all tripping
and skipping down to the water's edge.
Elbowing his way among them came Monsieur Au-
guste Chouteau, the most noted man in St. Louis. Pierre,
his brother, courtly, well-dressed, eminently social, came
also ; and even Madame, their mother, did not disdain to
come down to welcome her friends, Les Americains.
It was like the return of a fur brigade, with shouts of
laughter and genuine rejoicing.
" Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! eet ees Leewes an' Clark
whom ve haf mournt as det in dose Rock Mountain.
What good word mought dey bring from te fur
countree."
With characteristic abandon the emotional little French
men flung their arms around the stately forms of Lewis
and Clark, and more than one pretty girl that day printed
a kiss on their bearded lips.
THE OLD STONE FORTS OF ST. LOUIS 297
" Major Christy, — well, I declare !" An old Wayne's
army comrade grasped Captain Clark by the hand. What
memories that grasp aroused! William Christy, one of
his brother officers, ready not more than a dozen years
ago to aid in capturing this same San Luis de Ilinoa !
" I have moved to this town. I have a tavern. Send
your baggage right up ! " And forthwith a creaking cha-
rette came lumbering down the rocky way.
" Take a room at my house." Pierre Chouteau grasped
the hands of both Captains at once. And to Chouteau' s
they went.
" But first we must send word of our safe arrival to
the President," said Lewis, feeling unconsciously for
certain papers that had slept next his heart for many a
day.
" Te post haf departed from San Loui'," remarked a
bystander.
"Departed? It must be delayed. Here, Drouillard,
hurry with this note to Mr. Hay at Cahokia and bid him
hold the mail until to-morrow noon."
Drouillard, with his old friend Pascal Cerre, the son
of Gabriel, set off at once across the Mississippi. The
wharf was lined with flatboats loaded with salt for
'Kasky and furs for New Orleans.
Once a month a one-horse mail arrived at Cahokia.
Formerly St. Louis went over there for mail, — St.
Louis was only a village near Cahokia then ; but already
Les Americains were turning things upside down.
" We haf a post office now. San Loui' haf grown."
Every one said that. To eyes that had seen nothing
more stately than Fort Mandan or Clatsop, St. Louis
had taken on metropolitan airs. In the old fort where
lately lounged the Spanish governor, peering anxiously
across the dividing waters, and whence had lately
marched the Spanish garrison, American courts of jus
tice were in session. Out of the old Spanish martello
tower on the hill, a few Indian prisoners looked down on
the animated street below.
With the post office and the court house had come the
American school, and already vivacious French children
298 THE CONQUEST
were claiming as their own, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jef
ferson, and George Washington.
Just opposite the Chouteau mansion was the old Span
ish Government House, the house where George Rogers
Clark had met and loved the dazzling Donna.
Aaron Burr had lately been there, feted by the people,
plotting treason with Wilkinson in the Government House
itself; and now his disorganised followers, young men of
birth and education from Atlantic cities, stranded in St.
Louis, were to become the pioneer schoolmasters of Upper
Louisiana.
New houses were rising on every hand. In the good
old French days, goods at fabulous prices were kept in
boxes. Did Madame or •Mademoiselle wish anything, it
must be unpacked as from a trunk. Once a year goods
arrived. Sugar, gunpowder, blankets, spices, knives,
hatchets, and kitchen-ware, pell-mell, all together, were
coming out now onto shelves erected by the thrifty
Americans. Already new stores stood side by side with
the old French mansions.
"Alas! te good old quiet times are gone/' sighed the
French habitants, wiping a tear with the blue bandana.
And while they looked askance at the tall Americans,
elephantine horses, and Conestoga waggons, that kept
crossing the river, the prices of the little two-acre farms
of the Frenchmen w^ent up, until in a few years the old
French settlers were the nabobs of the land.
Already two ferry lines were transporting a never-
ending line through this new gateway to the wider West.
Land-mad settlers were flocking into " Jefferson's Pur
chase," grubbing out hazel roots, splitting rails, making
fences, building barns and bridges. Men whose sole
wealth consisted in an auger, a handsaw, and a gun,
were pushing into the prairies and the forests. Long-
bearded, dressed in buckskin, with a knife at his belt
and a rifle at his back, the forest-ranging backwoods
man was over-running Louisiana.
"Why do you live so isolated?" the stranger would
ask.
" I never wish to hear the bark of a neighbour's dog.
THE OLD STONE FORTS OF ST. LOUIS 299
When you hear the sound of a neighbour's gun it is time
to move away."
Thus, solitary and apart, the American frontiersman
took up Missouri.
Strolling along the Rue Royale, followed by admiring
crowds, Lewis and Clark found themselves already at
the Pierre Chouteau mansion, rising like an old-world
chateau amid the lesser St. Louis. Up the stone steps,
within the demi-fortress, there were glimpses of fur
warehouses, stables, slaves' quarters, occupying a block,
— practically a fort within the city.
Other guests were there before them, — Charles Gra-
tiot, who had visited the Clarks in Virginia, and John P.
Cabanne, who was to wed Gratiot's daughter, Julia.
On one of those flatboats crowding the wharf that morn
ing came happy Pierre Menard, the most illustrious citi
zen of Kaskaskia, with his bride of a day, Angelique
Saucier. Pierre Menard's nephew, Michel Menard, was
shortly to leave for Texas, to become an Indian trader
and founder of the city of Galveston.
At the board, too, sat Pierre Chouteau, the younger,
just returned from a trip up the Mississippi with Julien
Dubuque, where he had helped to start Dubuque and open
the lead mines.
Out of the wild summer grape the old inhabitants of
St. Louis had long fabricated their choicest Burgundy.
But of late the Chouteaus had begun to import their wine
from France, along with ebony chairs, claw-footed tables,
and other luxuries, the first in this Mississippi wild. For
never had the fur-trade been so prosperous.
There was laughter and clinking of glasses, and ques
tions of lands beyond the Yellowstone. Out of that hour
arose schemes for a trapper's conquest along the trail on
which ten future States were strung.
" The mouth of the Yellowstone commands the rich
fur-trade of the Rocky mountains," said Captain Clark.
Captain Lewis dwelt on the Three Forks as a strategic
point for a fort. No one there listened with more breath
less intent than the dark-haired boy, the young Chouteau,
who was destined to become the greatest financier of the
300 THE CONQUEST
West, a king of the fur trade, first rival and then partner
of John Jacob Astor.
No wonder the home-coming of Lewis and Clark was
the signal for enterprises such as this country had never
yet seen. They had penetrated a realm whose monarch
was the grizzly bear, whose queen was the beaver, whose
armies were Indian tribes and the buffalo.
Gallic love of gaiety and amusement found in this re
turn ample opportunity for the indulgence of hospitable
dancing and feasting. Every door was open. Every
house, from Chouteau's down, had its guest out of the
gallant thirty-one.
Hero-worship was at its height. Hero-worship is
characteristic of youthful, progressive peoples. Whole
nations strive to emulate ideals. The moment that ceases,
ossification begins.
Here the ideals were Lewis and Clark. They had been
west ; their men had been west. They, who had traced
the Missouri to its cradle in the mountains, who had
smoked the calumet with remotest tribes, who had car
ried the flag to the distant Pacific, became the lions of
St. Louis.
Such spontaneous welcome made a delightful impres
sion upon the hearts of the young Captains, and they felt
a strong inclination to make the city their permanent
home.
The galleries of the little inns of St. Louis were filled
with Frenchmen, smoking and telling stories all day long.
Nothing hurried, nothing worried them ; the rise of the
river, the return of a brigade, alone broke the long sum
mer day of content.
But here was something new.
Even York, addicted to romance, told Munchausen
tales of thrilling incidents that never failed of an appre
ciative audience. Trappers, flat-boatmen, frontiersmen,
and Frenchmen loved to spin long yarns at the Green
Tree Inn, but York could outdo them all. He had been
to the ocean, had seen the great whale and sturgeon that
put all inland fish stories far into the shade.
Petrie, Auguste Chouteau's old negro, who came with
THE OLD STONE FORTS OF ST. LOUIS 301
him as a boy and grew old and thought he owned
Auguste Chouteau, — Petrie, who always said, " Me and
the Colonel," met in York for the first time one greater
than himself.
Immediately upon their return Lewis and Clark had
repaired to the barber and tailor, and soon bore little re
semblance to the tawny frontiersmen in fringed hunt
ing-shirts and beards that had so lately issued from the
wilderness.
In the upper story of the Chouteau mansion, the Cap
tains regarded with awe the high four-poster with its
cushiony, billowy feather-bed.
" This is too luxurious ! York, bring my robe and
bear-skin."
Lewis and Clark could not sleep in beds that night.
They heard the watch call and saw the glimmer of camp-
fires in their dreams. The grandeur of the mountains
was upon them, cold and white and crowned with stars,
the vastness of the prairie and the dashing of ocean, the
roar of waterfalls, the hum of insects, and the bellowing
of buffalo.
They knew now the Missouri like the face of a
friend ; they had stemmed its muddy mouth, had evaded
its shifting sandbanks, had watched its impetuous falls
that should one day whirl a thousand wheels. Up wind
ings green as paradise they had drunk of its crystal
sources in the mountains.
They had seen it when the mountains cast their shadows
around the campfires, and in the blaze of noon when the
quick tempest beat it into ink. They had seen it white
in Mandan winter, the icy trail of brave and buffalo;
and they had seen it crimson, when far-off peaks were
tipped with amethystine gold.
In the vast and populous solitude of nature they had
followed the same Missouri spreading away into the
beaver-meadows of the Madison, the Jefferson, and the
Gallatin, and had written their journals on hillsides
where the windflower and the larkspur grew wild on
Montana hills.
An instinct, a relic, an inheritance of long ago was
302 THE CONQUEST
upon them, when their ancestors roved the earth untram
melled by cities and civilisation, when the rock was man's
pillow and the cave his home, when the arrow in his
strong hand brought the fruits of the chase, when gar
ments of skin clad his limbs, and God spoke to the white
savage under the old Phoenician stars.
In their dreams they felt the rain and wind beat on
their leather tent. Sacajawea's baby cried, Spring nodded
with the rosy clarkia, screamed with Clark's crow, and
tapped with Lewis's woodpecker.
" Rat-tat-tat ! " Was that the woodpecker ? No, some
one was knocking at the door of their bed chamber. And
no one else than Pierre Chouteau himself.
" Drouillard is back from Cahokia ready to carry your
post. The rider waits."
This was the world again. It was morning. Throw
ing off robes and bear-skins, and rising from the hard
wood floor where they had voluntarily camped that night,
both Captains looked at the tables strewn with letters,
where until past midnight they had sat the night before.
There lay Clark's letter to his brother, George Rogers,
and there, also, was the first rough draft of Lewis's letter
to the President, in a hand as fine and even as copper
plate, but interlined, and blotted with erasures.
In the soft, warm St. Louis morning, with Mississippi
breezes rustling the curtain, after a hurried breakfast
both set to work to complete the letters.
For a time nothing was heard but the scratching of
quill pens, as each made clean copies of their letters
for transmission to the far-off centuries. But no cen
turies troubled then ; to-day, — to-day, was uppermost.
York stuck in his head, hat in hand. " Massah Clahk,
Drewyer say he hab jus' time, sah."
" Well, sir, tell Drouillard the whole United States
mail service can wait on us to-day. We are writing to
the President."
Before ten o'clock Drouillard was off to Cahokia with
messages that gave to the nation at large its first intima
tion that the Pacific expedition was a consummated fact.
TO WASHINGTON 303
XXIX
TO WASHINGTON
THERE were hurried days at St. Louis, a village
that knew not haste before. The skins were sunned
and stored in the rooms of Cadet Chouteau. Boxes
of specimens were packed for the Government. Captain
Lewis opened his trunk and found his papers all wet.
The hermetically sealed tin cases that held the precious
journals alone had saved these from destruction.
The Captains had their hands full. The restless men
must be paid and discharged. Nine of the adventurers
within a week after the return to St. Louis sold their
prospective land claims for a pittance. Seven of these
claims were bought by their fellow soldiers; Sergeant
John Ordway took several of the men and settled on the
site of the present city of New Madrid.
Robert Frazer received two hundred and fifty dollars
for his claim, and prepared to publish his travels, — a
volume that never saw the light. In addition to land
grants, the men received double pay amounting altogether
to eleven thousand dollars.
A grand dinner, given by St. Louis, a ball and farewell,
and the Captains were on the way with their Mandan
chief, Big White, and his Indians, and Gass, Shannon,
Ordway, Pryor, and Bratton.
' The route by which I propose travelling to Washing
ton is by way of Cahokia, Vincennes, Louisville, the Crab
Orchard, Fincastle, Staunton, and Charlottesville," Cap
tain Lewis had written in that letter to Jefferson. " Any
letters directed to me at Louisville will most probably
meet me at that place."
With well-filled saddle-bags, the returning heroes
crossed to Cahokia and set out across Illinois in the
Indian summer of 1806.
Governor Harrison was at Vincennes, and Vigo, and a
hundred others to welcome.
304 THE CONQUEST
" Hurrah for old Kentucky ! " cried Clark, as he caught
sight of its limestone shores. On many a smiling hilltop,
the log cabin had expanded into a baronial country seat,
with waxed floors and pianos. Already the stables were
full of horses, the halls were full of music.
Clark, Lewis, and Big White climbed the cliff to the
Point of Rock. Who but chiefs should visit there?
With newspapers around him, sat George Rogers
Clark, following the career of Napoleon. That calm and
splendid eye kindled at sight of his brother. His locks
had grown longer, his eye a deeper black under the
shaggy brows, but the Revolutionary hero shone in every
lineament as he took the hands of the two explorers.
With the dashing waters at their feet, upon the lonely
Point of Rock, above the Falls of the Ohio, William Clark
stopped first to greet his brother from the great expe
dition. Painters may find a theme here, and future
romancers a page in drama.
Without delay, taking his rusty three-cornered chapcau
from its peg, and donning his faded uniform, the con
queror of Illinois accompanied the explorers to Locust
Grove, ablaze that night with welcome.
Lucy, Fanny, Edmund were there ; and Jonathan from
Mulberry Hill ; Major Croghan, the courtly host of old ;
and the lad, George Croghan, now in his fifteenth year.
All too quickly fled the hours ; the hickory flamed and the
brass andirons shone not brighter than the happy faces.
Spread around for exhibition were Mandan robes,
fleeces of the mountain goat, Clatsop hats, buffalo horns,
and Indian baskets, Captain Clark's " tiger-cat coat,"
Indian curios, and skins of grizzly bears, — each article
suggestive of adventure surpassing Marco Polo or the
Arabian nights. Another huge box, filled with bones for
the President, had been left with George Rogers Clark at
the Point of Rock.
Louisville received the explorers with bonfires and can-
nonry. A grand ball was given in their honour, in which
the Indians, especially, shone in medals and plumage. "
The next day there was a sad visit to Mill Creek, where
lamenting parents received the last token and listened
TO WASHINGTON 305
to the final word concerning their beloved son, Sergeant
Charles Floyd.
A cold wind and a light fall of snow warned them no
time must be lost in crossing the Kentucky mountains;
but encumbered with the Indian retinue they made slow
progress along that atrocious road, on which the fol
lowers of Boone had " sometimes paused to pray and
sometimes stopped to swear."
A few days beyond Cumberland Gap, Clark's heart
beat a tattoo ; they had come to Fincastle ! Among its
overhanging vines and trees, the Hancock mansion was
in holiday attire, — Harriet Kennedy had just been
married to Dr. Radford of Fincastle.
Colonel Hancock had been proud to entertain George
Rogers Clark, still more was he now delighted with the
visit of the famous explorers.
" La! " exclaimed Black Granny at the announcement
of Captain Clark. " Miss Judy?" Black Granny had
nursed Miss Judy from the cradle.
Sedately Miss Judy came down the long staircase, -
not the child that Clark remembered, but a woman, petite,
serious. The chestnut brown curls with a glint of gold
were caught with a high back comb, and a sweeping gown
had replaced the short petticoats that lately tripped over
the foothills of the Blue Ridge.
" My pretty cousin going to marry that ugly man? "
exclaimed Harriet, when she heard of the early engage
ment.
There was nothing effeminate about Clark, nor arti
ficial. His features were rugged almost to plainness ; his
head was high from the ear to the top, a large brain
chamber.
" Absolutely beautiful," said Judy to herself, associ
ating those bronzed features with endless winds that blew
on far-off mountains.
Behind the respectable old Hancock silver, Judy's
mother turned the tea and talked. Turning up his laced
sleeves to carve the mutton, Colonel Hancock asked a
thousand questions regarding that wonderful journey.
" We passed the winter on the Pacific, then crossed the
20
306 THE CONQUEST
mountains, and my division came down the Yellowstone,"
Clark was saying. " By the way, Judy, I have named a
river for you, — the Judith."
A peal of laughter rang through the dining-room.
" Judith ! Judith, did you say ? Why, Captain Clark,
my. name is Julia."
Clark was confounded. He almost feared Judy was
making fun of him. •
" Is it, really, now? I always supposed Judy stood for
Judith."
Again rang out the infectious peal, in which Clark
himself joined; but to this day rolls the river Judith in
Montana, named for Clark's mountain maid of Fincastle.
' That I should live to see you back from the Pacific ! "
was Aunt Molly's greeting at " The Farm," at Char-
lottesville. " I reckoned the cannibal savages would eat
you. We looked for nothing less than the fate of Captain
Cook."
But Maria, whose eyes had haunted Lewis in many a
long Montana day, seemed strangely shy and silent. In
fact, she had another lover, perhaps a dearer one.
Uncle Nicholas was sick. He was growing old, but
still directed the negroes of a plantation that extended
from Charlottesville to the Fluvanna.
It was sunset when Captain Lewis reached the home at
Locust Hill, and was folded to his mother's bosom. With
daily prayer had Lucy Meriwether followed her boy
across the Rocky Mountains.
Meriwether' s little pet sister, Mary Marks, had blos
somed into a bewitching rose.
" Here is a letter from the President."
Captain Lewis read his first message from Jefferson in
more than two years and a half.
Turning to Big White, the chief, who at every step had
gazed with amazement at the white man's country, —
" The President says ' Tell my friend of Mandan that
I have already opened my arms to receive him."
" Ugh ! Ugh ! " commented Big White, with visions of
barbaric splendour in his untutored brain.
That afternoon the entire party rode over to Monticello
THE PLAUDITS OF A NATION 307
to show the chief the President's Indian hall, where all
their gifts and tokens had been arranged for display.
The next day, by Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Alex
andria, the party set out for the national capital. Every
step of the way was a triumphal progress.
XXX
THE PLAUDITS OF A NATION
IT was well into January before both Captains reached
Washington. Workmen were still building at the
Capitol, rearing a home for Congress. Tools of car
pentry and masonry covered the windy lawn where Jef
ferson rode daily, superintending as on his own Virginia
plantation.
Never had Captain Lewis seen his old friend, the
President, so moved as when black Ben, the valet, with
stentorian call announced, " Captains Meh wether Lewis
and William Clahk ! "
In silk stockings and pumps they stood in the Blue
Room. At sight of that well-known figure in blue coat
faced with yellow, red plush waistcoat, and green vel
veteen breeches, Meriwether Lewis bounded as a boy
toward his old friend.
The gray-haired president visibly trembled as he
strained the two sons of his country to his heart. Tears
gushed from his eyes, " The suspense has been awful."
Then pausing, with difficulty he controlled his emotion.
" But the hopes, the dreams, the ambitions of twenty
years are now vindicated, and you are safe, boys, you
are safe. I felt that if you were lost the country would
hold me responsible."
If others had asked questions about the route, Jeffer
son now overwhelmed them with an avalanche, put with
the keenness of a scholar and the penetration of a
scientist. For with the possible exception of Franklin,
3o8 THE CONQUEST
Thomas Jefferson was the most learned man of his
time.
Into the President's hands Lewis placed the precious
journals, obtained at such a cost in toil and travel. Each
pocket volume, morocco-bound, had as soon as filled been
cemented in a separate tin case to prevent injury by wet
ting. But now Lewis had slipped the cases off and dis
played them neat and fresh as on the day of writing.
On rocking boats, on saddle pommels, and after dark
by the flickering campfire, had the writing been done.
T's were not always crossed, nor i's dotted, as hurriedly
each event was jotted down to be read and criticised after
a hundred years. Written under such circumstances, and
in such haste, it is not remarkable that words are mis
spelled and some omitted. A considerable collection of
later letters gives ample evidence that both the Captains
were graceful correspondents.
And the vocabularies, the precious vocabularies gath
ered from Council Bluffs to Clatsop, were taken by Jef
ferson and carefully laid away for future study.
Big White and his Indians were entertained by Jeffer
son and the cabinet. Dolly Madison, Mrs. Gallatin, and
other ladies of the White House, manifested the liveliest
interest as the tall Shahaka, six feet and ten inches, stood
up before them in his best necklace of bear's claws, admir
ing the pretty squaws that talked to them.
" And was your father a chief, and your father's
father?" Mrs. Madison inquired of Shahaka. She was
always interested in families and lineage. " And what
makes your hair so white ? " But Shahaka had never
heard of Prince Madoc.
Never had the village-capital been so gay. Dinners
and balls followed in rapid succession, eulogies and
poems were recited in honour of the explorers. There
was even talk of changing the name of the Columbia to
Lewis River.
In those days everybody went to the Capitol to hear
the debates. The report of Lewis and Clark created a
lively sensation. Complaints of the Louisiana Purchase
ceased. From the Mississippi to the sea, the United
THE PLAUDITS OF A NATION 309
States had virtually taken possession of the continent.
Members of Congress looked at one another with dilated
eyes. With lifted brow and prophetic vision the young
republic pierced the future. The Mississippi, once her
utmost border, was now but an inland river. Beyond it,
the Great West hove in sight, with peaks of snow and
the blue South Sea. The problem of the ages had been
solved; Lewis and Clark had found the road to Asia.
The news fell upon Europe and America as not less
than a revelation.
Congress immediately gave sixteen hundred acres of
land each to the Captains, and double pay in gold and
three hundred and twenty acres to each of their men, to
be laid out on the west side of the Mississippi. On the
third day of March, 1807, Captain Lewis was appointed
Governor of Louisiana; and on March 12, Captain Clark
was made Brigadier General, and Indian Agent for
Louisiana.
Tall, slender, but twenty-nine, Henry Clay was in the
Senate, advocating roads, — roads and canals to the West.
He was planning, pleading, persuading for a canal around
the Falls of the Ohio, he was appealing for the improve
ment of the Wilderness Road through which Boone had
broken a bridle trace. His prolific imagination grasped
the Chesapeake and Ohio canal and an interior connec
tion with the Lakes.
Henry Clay — " Harry Clay " as Kentucky fondly
called him — had a faculty for remembering names,
faces, places. As yesterday, he recalled William Clark
at Lexington.
And Clark remembered Clay, standing in an ox-
waggon, with flashing eyes, hair wildly waving, and
features aglow, addressing an entranced throng. The
same look flashed over him now as he stepped toward
the heroes of the Pacific.
" Congratulations, Governor."
" Congratulations, General."
The young men smiled at their new titles.
Another was there, not to be forgotten, strong fea
tured, cordial, cheerful, of manly beauty and large dark
3io THE CONQUEST
eyes, endeavouring to interest Congress in his inven
tions, — Robert Fulton of the steamboat.
Wherever they went, a certain halo seemed to hang
around these men of adventure. They were soldiers and
hunters, and more. Through heat and cold, and mount
and plain, four thousand miles by canoe, on foot and
horseback, through forests of gigantic pines and along
the banks of unknown rivers, among unheard-of tribes
who had never seen a white man, they had carried the
message of the President and brought back a report on
the new land that is authority to this day.
"What did you find?" Eager inquirers crowded on
every side to hear the traveller's tale. At Louisville, men
drove in from distant plantations; at Fincastle their
steps were thronged along the village walks; in Wash
ington they were never alone.
" What did we find? Gigantic sycamores for canoes,
the maple for sugar, the wild cherry and . walnut for
joiner's work, red and white elm for cartwrights, the
osage orange for hedges impenetrable, white and black
oak for ship and carpenter work, pine for countless uses,
and durable cedar.
"What did we find? All sorts of plants and herbs
for foods, dyes, and medicines, and pasturage unending",
Boone's settlers on the Missouri frontier have farms of
wheat, maize, potatoes, and little cotton fields, two acres
sufficient for a family. Hemp is indigenous to the soil.
Even in the Mandan land, the Indians, with implements
that barely scratch the earth, have immense gardens of
corn, beans, pumpkins, and squashes.
"What did we find? Oceans of beaver and seas of
buffalo, clay fit for bricks and white clay for pottery, salt
springs, saltpetre, and plaster, pipestone, and quarries
of marble red and white, mines of iron, lead and coal,
horses to be bought for a song, cedar, and fir trees six
and eight feet in diameter, enormous salmon that block
the streams."
No wonder the land was excited at the report of Lewis
and Clark.. All at once the unknown mysterious West
stood revealed as the home of natural resources. Their
THE PLAUDITS OF A NATION 311
travels became the Robinson Crusoe of many a boy who
lived to see for himself the marvels .of that trans-
Mississippi.
Sergeant Gass received his pay in gold and went home
to Wellsburg, West Virginia, to find his old father
smoking still beside the fire. With the help of a Scotch
schoolmaster Patrick published his book the next year, im
mortalising the name of the gallant Irish Sergeant. Then
he " inlisted " again, and fought the Creeks, and in 1812
lost an eye at Lundy's Lane. Presently he married the
daughter of a Judge, and lived to become a great student
in his old age, and an authority on Indians and early
times.
John Ordway went home to New Hampshire and
married, and returned to live on his farm near New
Madrid.
William Bratton tarried for a time in Kentucky, served
in the War of 1812 under Harrison, and was at Tippe-
canoe and the Thames. He married and lived at Terre
Haute, Indiana, and is buried at Waynetown.
George Gibson settled at St. Louis, and lived and died
there. Nathaniel Pryor and William Werner became
Indian agents under William Clark; Pryor died in 1831
among the Osages. George Drouillard went into the
fur trade and was killed by the Blackfeet at the Three
Forks of the Missouri. John Coalter, after adventures
that will be related, settled at the town of Daniel Boone,
married a squaw and died there. John Potts was killed
by the Blackfeet on the river Jefferson. Sacajawea and
Charboneau lived for many years among the Mandans,
and their descendants are found in Dakota to this day.
Of the voyageurs who went as far as the Mandan
town, Lajaunnesse accompanied Fremont across the
mountains; and two others, Francis Rivet and Philip
Degie, were the earliest settlers of Oregon, where they
lived to a great old age, proud of the fact that they had
" belonged to Lewis and Clark."
Book III
THE RED HEAD CHIEF
Book III
THE RED HEAD CHIEF
I
THE SHADOW OF NAPOLEON
"f | ^HANK God for the safety of our country!"
ejaculated Jefferson, in one of his long talks with
-•- Lewis regarding the upheaval across the sea.
In 1802 Napoleon had been declared Consul for life;
May 1 8, 1804, four days after Lewis and Clark started,
he had been saluted Emperor of France. Then came
Jena. When Lewis and Clark reached the Mandan towns,
Napoleon was entering Berlin with the Prussian monarchy
at his feet.
While they camped at Clatsop in those December days
of 1805, and while Baranof prayed for ships in his lonely
Sitkan outpost, across seas " the sun of Austerlitz " had
risen. Against Russian and Austrian, Napoleon had
closed a war with a clap of thunder.
Every breeze bore news that overawed the world.
" Napoleon has taken Italy."
" Napoleon has conquered Austria."
" Napoleon has defeated Russia."
" Napoleon has ruined Prussia."
" Napoleon has taken Spain."
While Lewis and Clark were at Washington came the
battles of Eylau and Dantzic. In December Napoleon
annexed Portugal, and the Court of Lisbon fled to
Brazil, to escape his arms and to rear anew the House
of Braganza.
3i6 THE CONQUEST
How much more remained to conquer? How soon
might the theatre of action come over the sea ? Still there
was England.
For a time the Napoleonic wars had thrown the carry
ing trade of the ocean into American hands. American
fanners could not reach the coast fast enough with their
fleets of grain, the food for armies. Cotton went up to a
fabulous price. Enterprise fired the young republic.
Ships were building two thousand miles inland to carry
her products to the ocean. She grew, she throve, and an
ever-increasing inland fleet carried to and fro the red life
of a growing nation.
On the other hand, the torch of liberty, lit in America
and burning there still with calm and splendid lustre,
carried by French soldiers to France had kindled a conti
nent, sweeping like a firebrand through a conflagration of
abuses. All tradition was overturning. America alone
was quiet, the refuge of the world. Every ship that
touched our shores brought fugitives fleeing from battle-
scarred fields where Europe groaned in sobs and blood.
Napoleon was now master of almost the entire coast of
Europe. Did he cast regretful eyes this way? America
feared it. Nothing but fear of England ever made
Napoleon give us Louisiana.
In May, 1806, England blockaded the French coast.
Napoleon retaliated by the Berlin Decrees, shutting up
all England, interdicting the commerce of the world.
And so, when Lewis and Clark returned, the giants
were locked in struggle, like Titans of old, tearing up
kingdoms, palatinates, and whole empires to hurl at each
other.
And we had Louisiana.
When Captain Lewis went to Washington he was the
bearer of a mass of papers on land claims sent by Auguste
Chouteau.
" I have had some disturbing news from Louisiana,"
said Jefferson. " In the first place, Monsieur Auguste
Chouteau writes requesting self-government, and that
Louisiana remain for ever undivided. Now the day may
come when we shall desire to cut Louisiana up into sov-
THE SHADOW OF NAPOLEON 317
ereign states, — not now, I grant, but in time, in time.
" Then the French people of New Orleans protest
against American rule. Such is the dissatisfaction, it is
said, that the people of Louisiana are only waiting for
Bonaparte's victory in his war with the allies to return to
their allegiance with France.
" St. Louis asks for a Governor ' who must reside in
the territory/ hence I propose to put you there."
So it came about that Meriwether Lewis wrote back
in February, " I shall probably come on to St. Louis for
the purpose of residing among you.''
There was trouble with Spain. In July, 1806, every
body thought there would be a war with her. But Na
poleon was Spain's protector. It would never do to de
clare war against Napoleon. Napoleon ! — the very word
meant subjugation.
" Why are we safe from Bonaparte ? " exclaimed Jef
ferson. " Only because he has not the British fleet at his
command."
Even while Congress was at its busiest, devising a
government for New Orleans, not at all was Jefferson
sure of the loyalty of the French of Louisiana.
"If they are not making overtures to Napoleon, they
are implicated in the treason of Aaron Burr."
All Washington was aflame over Aaron Burr. Only
two years before Captain Lewis had left him in the seat
of honour at Washington. The greatest lawyers in the
country now were prosecuting his trial at Richmond,
Randolph of Roanoke foreman of the jury and John
Marshall presiding.
Borne with the throng, Lewis went over to Richmond.
Washington Irving was there, Winfield Scott, and An
drew Jackson, " stamping up and down, damning Jeffer
son and extolling Burr."
Burr's friends, outcrying against Jefferson, caught
sight of Meriwether Lewis; his popularity in a degree
counteracted their vituperation. William Wirt of Mary
land came down after making his great speech, to present
a gold watch to his friend Meriwether Lewis.
With saddened heart Captain Lewis left Richmond,
318 THE CONQUEST
The beautiful Theodosia had come to stay with her father
at the penitentiary. Lewis always liked Aaron Burr.
What was he trying to do? The Mississippi was ours
and Louisiana. But even the Ursuline nuns welcomed
Burr to New Orleans, and the Creoles quite lost their
heads over his winning address. All seemed to confirm
the suspicions of Jefferson, who nightly tossed on his
couch of worry.
It was necessary for Captain, now Governor, Lewis,
to go to Philadelphia, to place his zoological and botanical
collections in the hands of Dr. Barton. Scarce had the
now famous explorer reached the city before he was
beset by artists. Charles Willson Peale, who had painted
the portraits of the most prominent officers of the Rev
olution, who had followed Washington and painted him
as a Virginia colonel, as commander-in-chief, and as pres
ident, who had sat with him at Valley Forge and limned
his features, cocked hat and all, on a piece of bed-ticking,
— Peale now wanted to paint Lewis and Clark.
Of course such a flattering invitation was not to be
resisted, and so, while Peale' s assistants were mounting
Lewis's antelopes, the first known to naturalists, and
preparing for Jefferson the head and horns of a Rocky
Mountain ram, Governor Lewis was sitting daily for his
portrait.
This detained him in Philadelphia, when suddenly, on
the 27th of June, the great upheaval of Europe cast
breakers on our shores that made the country rock.
It seemed as if in spite of herself the United States
would be drawn into the Napoleonic wars. England
needed sailors, she must have sailors, she claimed and
demanded them from American ships on the high
seas.
" You shall not search my ship," said the Captain
of the American frigate Chesapeake off the Virginian
capes. Instantly and unexpectedly, the British frigate
Leopard rounded to and poured broadsides into the
unprepared Chesapeake.
" Never," said Jefferson, " has this country been in
such a state of excitement since Lexington."
AMERICAN RULE IN ST. LOUIS 319
" Fired on our ship ! " The land was aflame. By
such white heat are nations welded.
It was a bold thing for England to disavow. But no
apologies could now conceal the fact, that not Napoleon,
but England, was destined to be our foe, England, who
claimed the commerce of the world.
Meriwether Lewis came home to hear Virginia ringing
for war; not yet had she forgotten Yorktown.
The mountains of Albemarle were clothed in all the
brilliancy of summer beauty when Lewis kissed his mother
good-bye, and set out to assume the governorship • of
Louisiana.
II
AMERICAN RULE IN ST. LOUIS
IMMEDIATELY after his appointment in charge of
Indian affairs, Clark left Washington, with Pryor
and Shannon, Big White and Jussaume and their
Indian families. The Ohio, swollen to the highest notch,
bore them racing into the Mississippi.
" Manuel Lisa haf gone up de Meessouri," was the
news at St. Louis. All winter Manuel Lisa had been
flying around St. Louis with Pierre Menard and George
Drouillard, preparing for an early ascent into the fur
country. So also had been the Chouteaus, intending to
escort Big White back to the Mandans.
At any time an Indian trader was a great man in St.
Louis. He could command fabulous prices for his skill,
and still more now could Drouillard, fresh from the un-
exploited land beyond the Mandans. All his money
Drouillard put into the business, and with the earliest
opening of 1807, Lisa Menard and Drouillard set out for
the upper Missouri with an outfit of sixteen thousand
dollars.
" Wait for the Mandan chief," said Frederick Bates,
the new Territorial Secretary.
320 THE CONQUEST
Manuel Lisa was not a man to wait. " While others
consider whether they will start, I am on my way," he
answered.
Dark, secret, unfathomable, restless, enterprising, a
very Spaniard for pride, distrusted and trusted, a judge
of men, Manuel Lisa had in him the spirit of De Soto
and Coronado.
For twenty years Lisa had traded with Indians. Of
late the Spanish government had given him exclusive
rights on the Osage, a privilege once held by the Chou-
teaus, but alas for Lisa! a right now tumbled by the ces
sion. For the United States gave no exclusive privileges.
He reached the ear of Drouillard ; they went away to
gether. No one better than Lisa saw the meaning of
that great exploration.
Coincidently with the arrival of Clark and Big White
out of the Ohio, came down a deputation of Yankton
Sioux with old Dorion from the Missouri. With that
encampment of Indians, around, behind, before the Gov
ernment House, began the reign of the Red Head chief
over the nations of the West that was to last for thirty
years. St. Louis became the Red Head's town, and the
Red Head's signature came to be known to the utmost
border of Louisiana.
" We want arms and traders," said the Yankton Sioux.
Both were granted, and laden with presents, before the
close of May they were dispatched again to their own
country. And with them went Big White in charge of
Ensign Pryor, Sergeant George Shannon, and Pierre
Chouteau, with thirty-two men for the Mandan trade.
Even the Kansas knew that Big White had gone down
the river, and were waiting to see him go by.
" The whites are as the grasses of the prairie," said Big
White.
In July the new Governor, Meriwether Lewis, arrived
and assumed the Government. With difficulty the offi
cers had endeavoured to harmonise the old and the new.
All was in feud, faction, disorder.
St. Louis was a foreign village before the cession.
Nor was this changed in a day.
AMERICAN RULE IN ST. LOUIS 321
" Deed not de great Napoleon guarantee our leeb-
ertee?" said the French. " We want self-government."
But Lewis and Clark, these two had met the French
ideal of chivalry in facing the Shining Mountains and
the Ocean. Pretty girls sat in the verandas to see them
pass. Fur magnates set out their choicest viands. The
conquest of St. Louis was largely social. With less tact
and less winning personalities we might have had discord.
Whatever Lewis wanted, Clark seconded as a sort of
Lieutenant Governor. It seemed as if the two might
go on forever as they had done in the great expedition.
Ever busy, carving districts that became future States,
laying out roads, dispensing justice and treating with
Indians, all went well until the i6th of October, when a
wave of sensation swept over St. Louis.
" Big White, the Mandan chief, is back. The Ameri
can flag at the bow of his boat has been fired on and
he is compelled to fall back on St. Louis."
All summer the vengeful Arikaras had been watching.
" They killed our chief, the Brave Raven."
The Teton Sioux plotted. " They will give the Man-
dans arms and make our enemies stronger than we are."
So in great bands, Sioux and Arikaras had camped along
the river to intercept the returning brave.
''' These are the machinations of the British," said
Americans in St. Louis.
:' This is a trick of Manuel Lisa," said the fur traders.
" His boats passed in safety, why not ours? "
In fact, there had been a battle. Not with impunity
should trade be carried into the land of anarchy. Three
men were killed and several wounded, including Shannon
and Rene Jussaume. And they in turn had killed Black
Buffalo, the Teton chief that led the onslaught.
All the way down the Missouri George Shannon had
writhed with his wounded knee. Blood poisoning set in.
They left him at Bellefontaine.
" Dees leg must come off," said Dr. Saugrain, the army
surgeon.
He sent for Dr. Farrar, a young American physician
who had lately located in St. Louis. Together, without
21
322 THE CONQUEST
anesthetics, they performed the first operation in thigh
amputation ever known in that region. m
" Woonderful ! woonderful ! " exclaimed the Creoles.
" Dees Dogtors can cut une man all up." Great already
was the reputation of Dr. Saugrain ; to young Farrar it
gave a prestige that made him the Father of St. Louis
surgery.
Shannon lay at the point of death for eighteen months,
but youth rallied, and he regained sufficient strength to
journey to Lexington, where he took up the study of law.
He lived to become an eminent jurist and judge, ^and the
honoured progenitor of many distinguished bearers of his
name.
Ill
FAREWELL TO FINCASTLE
GENERAL CLARK had had a busy summer,
travelling up and down the river, assisting the
Governor at St. Louis in reducing his tumultuous
domain to order, treating with Indians, conferring with
Governor Harrison in his brick palace at Old Vincennes,
consulting with his brothers, General Jonathan and
General George Rogers Clark at the Point of Rock.
Now, in mid-autumn, he was again on his way to
Fincastle.
Never through the tropic summer had Julia been absent
from his thoughts. A little house in St. Louis had been
selected that should shelter his bride; and now, as fast
as hoof and horse could speed him, he was hastening
back to fix the day for his wedding.
October shed glory on the burnished forests. Here
and there along the way shone primitive farmhouses,
the homes of people. The explorer's heart beat high.
He had come to that time in his life when he, too, should
have a home. Those old Virginia farmhouses, steep of
roof and sloping at the eaves, four rooms below and two
FAREWELL TO FINCASTLE 323
in the attic, with great chimneys smoking at either end,
seemed to speak of other fond and happy hearts.
The valley of Virginia extends from the Potomac to
the Carolina line. The Blue Ridge bounds it on one side,
the Kittatinnys on the other, and in the trough-like valley
between flows the historic Shenandoah.
From the north, by Winchester, scene of many a
border fray and destined for action more heroic yet,
Clark sped on his way to Fincastle. Some changes had
taken place since that eventful morning when Governor
Spotswood looked over the Blue Ridge. A dozen miles
from Winchester stood Lord Fairfax's Green w.ay Court,
overshadowed by ancient locusts, slowly mouldering to
its fall. Here George Washington came in his boyhood,
surveying for the gaunt, raw-boned, near-sighted old
nobleman who led him hard chases at the fox hunt.
From the head spring of the Rappahannock to the head
spring of the Potomac, twenty-one counties of old Vir
ginia once belonged to the Fairfax manor, now broken
and subdivided into a thousand homes. Hither had come
tides of Quakers, and Scotch-Presbyterians, penetrating
farther and farther its green recesses, cutting up the fruit
ful acres into colonial plantations.
" The Shenandoah, it is the very centre of the United
States," said the emigrants.
The valley was said to be greener than any other, its
waters were more transparent, its -soil more fruitful. At
any rate German-Pennsylvanians pushed up here, rear
ing barns as big as fortresses, flanked round with hay
stacks and granaries. Now and then Clark met them,
in loose leather galligaskins and pointed hats, sunning in
wide porches, smoking pipes three feet long, while their
stout little children tumbled among the white clover.
Here and there negroes were whistling with notes as
clear as a fife, and huge Conestoga waggons loaded with
produce rumbled along to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Rich
mond. Every year thousands of waggons went to mar
ket, camping at night and making the morning ring with
Robin Hood songs and jingling bells.
Yonder lived Patrick Henry in his last years, at pic-
324 THE CONQUEST
turesque Red Hill on the Staunton. Here in his old age
he might have been seen under the trees in his lawn,
buried in revery, or on the floor, with grandchildren
clambering over him or dancing to his violin.
But Clark was not thinking of Patrick Henry, or Fair
fax, — in fact he scarcely remembered their existence,
so intent was his thought on his maid of the mountains,
Julia Hancock.
The leaves were falling from elm and maple, strewing
the path with gold and crimson. The pines grew taller
in the twilight, until he could scarcely see the bypaths
chipped and blazed by settlers' tomahawks.
Sunset was gilding the Peaks of Otter as Clark drew
rein at the little tavern near Fincastle.
" I was rented 'to the King of England by my Prince
of Hesse Cassel," the Hessian proprietor was saying,
" I was rented out to cut the throats of people who had
never done me any harm. Four pence three farthings a
day I got, and one penny farthing went to His Royal
Highness, the Prince. I fought you, then I fell in love
with you, and when the war was over I stayed in
America."
Clark listened. It was a voice out of the Revolution.
After a hurried luncheon the tireless traveller was again
in his saddle; and late that night in the moonlight he
opened the gate at Colonel Hancock's.
York had followed silently through all the journey, —
York, no longer a slave, for in consideration of his ser
vices on the expedition the General had given him his
freedom. But "as a voluntary body-guard he would not
be parted from his master.
" For sho' ! who cud tek cah o' Mars Clahk so well as
oldYawk?"
" What if love-lorn swains from a dozen plantations
have tried to woo and win my pretty cousin! The
bronzed face of Lochinvar is bleaching," said the teas
ing Harriet when she heard that the wedding date was
really set. " One day, who knows, his skin may be white
as yours."
Sudden as a flood in the Roanoke came Julia's tears.
FAREWELL TO FINCASTLE 325
Relenting, the lively, light-hearted Harriet covered her
cousin's curls with kisses.
" The carriage and horses are at your service. Hunt,
fish, loung^ as you please," said Colonel Hancock, " for
I must be at the courthouse to try an important case."
With thousands of acres and hundreds of negroes, it
was the dream of Colonel Hancock to one day drop
these official cares and retire altogether into the privacy
of his plantation. Already, forty miles away, at the
very head spring- of the Roanoke river, he was build
ing a country seat to be called " Fotheringay," after
Fotheringay Castle.
Back and forth in the gorgeous October weather rode
Clark and Julia, watching the workmen at Fotheringay.
Now and then the carriage stopped at an orchard.
Passers were always at liberty to help themselves to the
fruit. Peaches so abundant that they fed the hogs with
them, apples rosy and mellow, grapes for the vintage,
were in the first flush of abundance. What a contrast to
that autumn in the Bitter Root Mountains !
Then late in November to Fincastle came Governor
Lewis and his brother Reuben, on their way to the west.
He, too, had been to Washington on business concerning
St. Louis.
" The great success of York among the Mandans has
decided Reuben to take Tom along," laughed Lewis, as
Reuben's black driver dismounted from the carriage —
the same family chariot in which Meriwether had brought
his mother from Georgia, now on the way to become the
state coach of Louisiana. •
Black Tom beamed, expansively happy, on York who
had been " tuh th' Injun country " where black men were
" Great Medicine."
" Ha, Your Excellency," laughed the teasing Harriet,
" the beauty of Fincastle dines with us to-night, — Miss
Letitia Breckenridge."
" Wait and the Governor will court you," some one
whispered to the charming Letitia.
" I have contemplated accompanying my father to
Richmond for some time," replied Letitia. " If I stay
326 THE CONQUEST
now it will look like a challenge, therefore I determine
to go."
Governor Lewis underwent not a little chafing when
two days after his arrival the lovely Letitia was gone, —
to become the wife of the Secretary of War in John
Quincy Adams's cabinet.
" Miss Breckenridge is a very sweet-looking girl,"
wrote Reuben to his sister, " and I should like to have
her for a sister. General Clark's intended is a charming
woman. When I tell you that she is much like my sweet
heart you will believe I think so."
" What are you doing? " Clark asked of Julia, as she
sat industriously stitching beside the hickory fire in the
great parlour at Fincastle.
" Working a little screen to keep the fire from burning
my face," answered the maiden, rosy as the glow itself.
Much more beautiful than the little Sacajawea, stitching
moccasins beside the fire at Clatsop, she seemed to Clark ;
and yet the feminine intuition was the same, to sew, to
stitch, to be an artist with the needle.
" The mistletoe hung in Fincastle hall,
The holly branch shone on the old oak wall,
And the planter's retainers were blithe and gay,
A-keeping their Christmas holiday."
There was sleighing at Fincastle when the wedding
day came, just after New Year's, 1808. The guests
came in sleighs from as far away as Greenway Court,
for all the country-side knew and loved Judy Hancock.
Weeping, soft-hearted Black Granny tied again the
sunny curls and looped the satin ribbons of her beloved
" Miss Judy." The slaves vied with one another, strew
ing the snow with winter greens that no foot might
touch the chill.
The wainscoted and panelled walls glowed with green
ery. Holly hung over the carved oaken chimneys, and
around the fowling pieces and antlers of the chase that
betokened the hunting habits of Colonel Hancock. Silver
tankards marked with the family arms sparkled on the
damask table cloth, and silver candlesticks and snuffers
THE BOAT HORN 327
and silver plate. Myrtleberry wax candles gave out an
incense that mingled with the odour of hickory snapping
in the fireplace.
" Exactly as her mother looked," whispered the grand
mother when Judy came down, — grandmother, a brisk
little white-capped old lady in quilted satin, who remem
bered very well the mother of Washington.
The stars hung blazing on the rim of the Blue Ridge
and the snow glistened, when out of the great house came
the sound of music and dancing. There were wedding
gifts after the old Virginia fashion, and when all had
been inspected Clark handed his bride a small jewel case
marked with her name.
The cover flew open, revealing a set of topaz and
pearls, " A gift from the President."
Out into the snow went these wedding guests of a hun
dred years ago, to scatter and be forgotten.
IV
THE BOAT HORN
ALL the romance of the old boating time was in
Clark's wedding trip down the Ohio. It was on
a May morning when, stepping on board a flatboat
at Louisville, he contrasted the daintiness of Julia with
that of any other travelling companion he had ever known.
The river, foaming over its rocky bed, the boatmen
blowing their long conical bugles from shore to shore,
the keelboats, flat-bottoms, and arks loaded with emi
grants all intent on " picking guineas from gooseberry
bashes," spoke of youth, life, action. Again the boat
man blew his bugle, echoes of other trumpets answered,
" Farewell, farewell, fare — we-11." Soon they were into
the full sweep of the pellucid Ohio, mirroring skies and
shores dressed in the livery of Robin Hood.
Frowning precipices and green islets arose, and pro-
328 THE CONQUEST
jecting headlands indenting the Ohio with promontories
like a chain of shining lakes. Hills clothed in ancient
timber, hoary whitened sycamores draped in green clus
ters of mistletoe, and magnificent groves of the dark green
sugar tree reflected from the water below. Shut in to the
water's edge, a woody wilderness still, the river glided
between its umbrageous shores.
Now and then the crowing of cocks announced a clear
ing where the axe of the settler had made headway, or
some old Indian mound blossomed with a peach orchard.
Flocks of screaming paroquets alighted in the treetops,
humming birds whizzed into the honeysuckle vines and
flashed away with dewdrops on their jewelled throats.
On the water with them, now near, now far, were other
boats, — ferry flats and Alleghany skiffs, pirogues hol
lowed from prodigious sycamores, dug-outs and canoes,
stately barges with masts and sails and lifted decks like
schooners, keel boats, slim and trim for low waters, Ken
tucky arks, broadhorns, roomy and comfortable, filled up
with chairs, beds, stoves, tables, bound for the Sangamon,
Cape Girardeau, Arkansas.
Floating caravans of men, women, children, servants,
cattle, hogs, horses, sheep, and fowl were travelling down
the great river. Some boats fitted up for stores dropped
off at the settlements, blowing the bugle, calling the
inhabitants down to trade.
Here a tinner with his tinshop, with tools and iron, a
floating factory, there a blacksmith shop with bellows
and anvil, dry-goods boats with shelves for cutlery and
cottons, produce boats with Kentucky flour and hemp,
Ohio apples, cider, maple sugar, nuts, cheese, and fruit,
and farther down, Tennessee cotton, Illinois corn, and
cattle, Missouri lead and furs, all bound for New Orleans,
a panorama of endless interest to Julia. Here white-
winged schooners were laden entirely with turkeys,
tobacco, hogs, horses, potatoes, or lumber, Nature pour
ing forth perennial produce from a hundred tributary
streams.
A bateau could descend from the mouth of the Ohio to
New Orleans in three weeks ; three months of toil could
THE BOAT HORN 329
barely bring it back. How could boats be made to go
against the current? Everywhere and everywhere in
ventive minds were puzzling over motors, paddles —
duck-foot, goose-foot, and elliptical, — wings and sails,
side-wheels, stern-wheels, and screws, — and steam was
in the air.
As the sun went down in lengthening shadows a purple
haze suffused the waters. Adown La Belle Riviere, " the
loveliest stream that ever glistened to the moon," arose
the evening cadence of the boatmen, —
" Some row up, but we row down,
All the way to Shawnee Town,
Pull away ! Pull away !
Pull away to Shawnee Town."
The crescent moon shone brightly on crag and stream
and floating forest, the air was mild and moist, the boat
glided as in a dream, and the mocking bird enchanted the
listening silence.
To Clark no Spring had ever seemed so beautiful. Sit
ting on deck with Julia he could not forget that turbulent
time when as a boy he first plunged down these waters.
Symbolic of his whole life it seemed, until now the storm
and stress of youth had calmed into the placid current
of to-day. The past, — the rough toil-hardened past of
William Clark, — fell away, and as under a lifted silken
curtain he floated into repose. The rough old life of
camps and forts was gone forever.
And to Julia, everything was new and strange, — La
Belle Riviere itself whispered of Louisiana. Like an
Alpine horn the bugle echoed the dreamlife of the waters.
The fiddles scraping, boatmen dancing, the smooth
stream rolling calmly through the forest, the girls who
gathered on shore to see the pageant pass, the river
itself, momentarily lost to view, then leaping again in
Hogarth's line of beauty, — all murmured perpetual
music.
Then slumber fell upon the dancers, but still Clark and
Julia sat watching. From clouds of owls arose voices of
the night, cries of wolves reverberated on shore, the
330 THE CONQUEST
plaintive whippoorwill in the foliage lamented to the
moon, meteors rose from the horizon to sweep majesti
cally aloft and burst in a showering spray of gems below.
The very heavens were unfamiliar. Awed, impressed,
by the mysteries around them, they slept.
Before sun-up the mocking-bird called from the highest
treetop and continued singing until after breakfast, imi
tating the jay, the cardinal, and the lapwing, then sailing
away into a strain of his own wild music.
At the mouth of the Wabash arks were turning in to
old Vincennes. Below, broader grew the Ohio, unbroken
forests still and twinkling stars. Here and there arose the
graceful catalpa in full flower, and groves of cottonwoods
so tall that at a distance one could fancy some planter's
mansion hidden in their depths. Amid these Eden scenes
appeared here and there the deserted cabin of some mur
dered woodman whose secret only the Shawnee knew.
Wild deer, crossing the Ohio, heard the bugle call,
and throwing their long branching antlers on their shoul
ders sank out of sight, swimming under the water until
the shore opened into the sheltering forest.
At times the heavens were darkened with the flights of
pigeons ; there was a song of the thrush and the echoing
bellow of the big horned owl. Wild turkeys crossed
their path and wild geese screamed on their journey to the
lakes.
One day the boats stopped, and before her Julia beheld
the Mississippi sweeping with irresistible pomp and wrath,
tearing at the shores, bearing upon its tawny bosom the
huge drift of mount and meadow, whole herds of drowned
buffalo, trunks of forest trees and caved-in banks of silt,
leaping, sweeping seaward in the sun. Without a pause
the bridegroom river reached forth his brawny arm, and
gathered in the starry-eyed Ohio. Over his Herculean
shoulders waved her silver tresses, deep into his bosom
passed her gentle transparency as the twain made one
swept to the honeymoon.
All night Clark's bateau lay in a bend while York and
the men kept off the drift that seemed to set toward them
in their little cove as toward a magnet.
A BRIDE IN ST. LOUIS 331
On the 26th of May Governor Lewis received a letter
from Clark asking for help up the river. Without delay
the Governor engaged a barge to take their things to
Bellefontaine and another barge to accommodate the Gen
eral, his family and baggage.
Dispatching a courier over the Bellefontaine road,
Governor Lewis sent to Colonel Hunt a message, asking
him to send Ensign Pryor to meet the party.
With what delight Clark and his bride saw the barges
with Ensign Pryor in charge, coming down from St.
Louis. Then came the struggle up the turbulent river.
Clark was used to such things, but never before had he
looked on them with a bride at his side. With sails and
oars and cordelles all at once, skilled hands paddled and
poled and stemmed the torrent, up, up to the rock of the
new levee.
Thus the great explorer brought home his bride to St.
Louis in that never-to-be-forgotten May-time one hundred
years ago.
V
A BRIDE IN ST. LOUIS
"AN Americaine bride, General Clark haf brought!
i\^ She haf beeutiful eyes! She haf golden hair!"
•L .A. The Creole ladies were in a flutter.
" Merci! She haf a carriage ! " they cried, peeping
from their lattices. Governor Lewis himself had met
the party at the shore, and now in the first state coach
St. Louis had ever seen, was driving along the Rue de
1'Eglise to Auguste Chouteau's.
"Merci! She haf maids enough!" whispered the
gazers, as Rachel, Rhody, Chloe, Sarah, brought up the
rear with their mistress's belongings. Then followed
York, looking neither to the right nor the left. He knew
St. Louis was watching, and he delighted in the stir.
332 THE CONQUEST
The fame of the beauty of General Clark's American
bride spread like wild-fire. For months wherever she
rode or walked admiring crowds followed, eager to catch
a glimpse of her face. Thickly swathed in veils, Julia
concealed her features from the public gaze, but that only
increased the interest.
" She shall haf a party, une grande reception," said
Pierre Chouteau, and the demi-fortress was opened to a
greater banquet than even at the return of Lewis and
Clark.
Social St. Louis abandoned itself to gaiety. Dancing
slippers were at a premium, and all the gay silks that
ever came up from New Orleans were refurbished with
lace and jewels.
' They are beautiful women," said Julia that night.
" I thought you told me there were only Indians here."
Clark laughed. " Wait until you walk in the streets."
And sure enough, with the arrival of the beautiful
Julia came also certain Sacs and lowas who had been
scalping settlers within their borders. With bolted hand
cuffs and leg shackles they were shut up in the old
Spanish martello tower. From the Chouteau house Julia
could see their cell windows covered with iron gratings
and the guard pacing to and fro.
At the trial in the old Spanish garrison house on the
hill the streets swarmed with red warriors.
" How far away St. Louis is from civilisation," re
marked Julia. " We* seem in the very heart of the In
dian country."
" The Governor has organised the militia, and our
good friend Auguste Chouteau is their colonel," an
swered her husband, reassuringly.
" Why these fortifications, these bastions and stone
towers ? " inquired Julia, as they walked along the Rue.
' They were built a long time ago for defences against
the Indians. In fact my brother defended St. Louis once
against an Indian raid."
' Tell me the story," cried Julia. And walking along
the narrow streets under the honey-scented locusts, Clark
told Julia of the fight and fright of 1 780.
A BRIDE IN ST. LOUIS 333
" And was that when the Spanish lady was here? "
" Yes."
" And what became of her finally? "
" She fled with the nuns to Cuba at the cession of New
Orleans."
Trilliums red and white, anemones holding up their
shell-pink cups, and in damp spots adder's tongues and
delicate Dutchman's breeches, were thick around them as
they walked down by the old Chouteau Pond. Primeval
forests surrounded it, white-armed sycamores and thickets
of crab-apple.
" This is the mill that makes bread for St. Louis.
Everybody comes down to Chouteau' s mill for flour. It
is so small I am not surprised that they call St. Louis
'Pain Court' — 'short of bread.' To-morrow the washer
women will be at the pond, boiling clothes in iron pots
and drying them on the hazel bushes."
As they came back in the flush of evening all St.
Louis had moved out of doors. The wide galleries were
filled with settees and tables and chairs, and the neigh
bourly Creoles were visiting one another, and greeting
the passers-by.
Sometimes the walk led over the hill to the Grand
Prairie west of town. The greensward waved in the
breezes like a wheatfield in May. Cabanne's wind-mill
could be seen in the distance across the prairie near the
timber with its great wings fifty and sixty feet long flying
in the air like things of life.
Cabanne the Swiss had married Gratiot's daughter.
St. Louis weddings generally took place at Easter, so
other brides and grooms were walking there in those
May days a hundred years ago. Night and morning, as
in Acadia, the rural population still went to and from
the fields with their cattle and carts and old-style wheel
ploughs.
In November Clark and his bride moved into the Rene
Kiersereau cottage on the Rue Royale. The old French
House of Rene Kiersereau dated back to the beginning
of St. Louis. Built of heavy timbers and plastered with
rubble and mortar, it bade fair still to withstand the wear
334 THE CONQUEST
and tear of generations. With a long low porch in front
and rear, and a fence of cedar pickets like a miniature
stockade, it differed in no respect from the other modest
cottages of St. Louis. Back of the house rushed the
river; before it, locusts and lightning bugs flitted in the
summer garden. Beside the Kiersereau house Clark had
his Indian office in the small stone store of Alexis Marie.
Into this little house almost daily came Meriwether
Lewis, and every moment that could be spared from
pressing duties was engrossed in work on the journals
of the expedition. Sometimes Julia brought her harp
and sang. But into this home quiet were coming con
stant echoes of the Indian world.
" Settlers are encroaching on the Osage lands. We
shall have trouble/' said Governor Lewis. Under an
escort of a troop of cavalry Clark rode out into the In
dian country to make a treaty with the Osages. The
Shawnees and Delawares had been invited to settle near
St. Louis to act as a shield against the barbarous Osages.
The Shawnees and Delawares were opening little farms
and gardens near Cape Girardeau, building houses and
trying to become civilised. But settlers had gone on
around them into the Osage wilderness.
" I will establish a fort to regulate these difficulties,"
said the General, and on his return Fort Osage was built.
" Settlers are encroaching on our lands," came the cry
from Sacs, Foxes, and lowas. Governor Lewis himself
held a council with the discontented tribes and estab
lished Fort Madison, the first United States post up the
Mississippi.
But there were still Big White and his people not yet
returned to the Mandan country, and this was the most
perplexing problem of all.
THE FIRST FORT IN MONTANA 335
VI
THE FIRST FORT IN MONTANA
MANUEL LISA had enemies and ambition. These
always go together.
Scarcely had Clark and his bride settled at St.
Louis before down from the north came Manuel Lisa's
boats, piled, heaped, and laden to the gunwale edge with
furs out of the Yellowstone. His triumphant guns sa
luted Charette, St. Charles, St. Louis. He had run the
gauntlet of Sioux, Arikara, and Assiniboine. He had
penetrated the Yellowstone and established Fort Lisa at
the mouth of the Bighorn in the very heart of the Crow-
land, — the first building in what is now Montana.
" Dey say you cause de attack on Big White," buzzed
a Frenchman in his ear. Angry at such an imputation,
the Spaniard hastened to Governor Lewis.
" I disclaim all responsibility for that disaster. The
Arikaras fired across my bow. I stopped. But I had
my men-at-arms, my swivels ready. I understood pres
ents. I smoked the pipe of peace, with a musket in my
hand. Of course I passed. Even the Mandans fired on
me, and the Assiniboines. Should that dismay a trader?"
Manuel Lisa, the successful, was now monarch of the
fur trade. Even his enemies capitulated.
" If he is stern in -discipline, the service demands it.
He has gone farther, dared more, accomplished more, and
brought home more, than any other. What a future for
St. Louis ! We must unite our forces."
And so the city on the border reached out toward her
destiny. Pierre and Auguste Chouteau,- William Clark
and Reuben Lewis, locked fortunes with the daring, in
domitable Manuel Lisa. Pierre Menard, Andrew Henry,
and others, a dozen altogether, put in forty thousand dol
lars, incorporating the Missouri Fur Company. Into the
very heart of the Rocky Mountains it was resolved to
336 THE CONQUEST
push, into those primeval beaver meadows whither Lewis
and Clark had led the way.
" Abandon the timid methods of former trade, —
plunge at once deep into the wilderness," said Lisa;
" ascend the Missouri to its utmost navigable waters,
and by establishing posts monopolise the trade of the
entire region."
Already had Lisa dreamed of the Santa Fe, — now he
looked toward the Pacific.
And now, too, was the time to send Big White back
to the Mandans. Under the convoy of two hundred and
fifty people, — enlisted soldiers and engages, American
hunters, Creoles, and Canadian voyageurs, — the fur
flotilla set sail with tons of traps and merchandise.
As the flotilla pulled out, a tall gaunt frontiersman
with two white men and an Indian came pulling into
St. Louis. Clark turned a second time, — " Why, Daniel
Boone!"
" First rate ! first rate ! " Furrowed as a sage and
tanned as a hunter, with a firm hand-grasp, the old man
stepped ashore. Two summers now had Daniel Boone
and his two sons brought down to St. Louis a cargo of
salt, manufactured by themselves at Boone's Lick, a dis
covery of the old pioneer.
" Any settlers comin' ? We air prepared to tote 'em
up."
Ever a welcome guest to the home of General Clark,
Daniel Boone strode along to the cottage on the Rue.
At sight of Julia he closed his eyes, dazzled.
" Tears to me she looks like Rebecca."
Never, since that day when young Boone went hunting
deer in the Yadkin forest and found Rebecca Bryan, a
ruddy, flax-haired girl, had he ceased to be her lover.
And though years had passed and Rebecca had faded,
to him she was ever the gold-haired girl of the Yadkin.
Poor Rebecca! Hers had been a hard life in camp and
cabin, with pigs and chickens in the front yard and rain
dripping through the roof.
" Daniel ! " she sometimes said, severely.
" Wa-al, now Rebecca, thee knows I did n't have time
A MYSTERY 337
to mend that air leak in the ruff last summer ; I war gone
too long at the beaver. But thee shall have a new house."
And again the faithful Rebecca stuffed a rag in the ceil
ing with her mop-handle and meekly went on baking
hoe-cake before the blazing forelog.
Daniel had long promised a new house, but now, at
last, he was really going to build. For this he was study
ing St. Louis.
A day looking at houses and disposing of his salt and
beaver-skins, and back he went, with a boatload of emi
grants and a cargo of school-books. Mere trappers came
and went, — Boone brought settlers. Pathfinder, judge,
statesman, physician to the border, he now carried equip
ments for the first school up the Missouri.
VII
A MYSTERY
FURS were piled everywhere, the furs that had been
wont to go to Europe, — otter, beaver, deer, and
bear and buffalo. American ships, that had sped
like eagles on every sea, were threatened now by Eng
land if they sailed to France, by France if they sailed to
England.
" If our ships, our sailors, our goods are to be seized,
it is better to keep them at home," said Jefferson.
" War itself would be better than that," pled Gallatin.
The whole world was taking sides in the cataclysm over
the sea. Napoleon recognised no neutrals. England rec
ognised none. Denmark tried it, and the British fleet
burned Copenhagen. Ominously the conflagration glim
mered, — such might be the fate of any American seaport.
" If we must fight let us go with France," said some.
" Napoleon will guarantee us the cession of Canada and
Nova Scotia."
But Jefferson, carrying all before him, on Tuesday,
338 THE CONQUEST
December 22, 1807, signed an embargo act, shutting
up our ships in our own harbours. In six months com
mercial life-blood ceased to flow. Ships rotted at the
wharfs. Grass grew in the streets of Baltimore and
Boston.
St. Louis traders tried to go over to Canada, but were
stopped at Detroit — "by that evil embargo."
St. Louis withered. " De Meeseppi ees closed. Tees
worse dan de Spaniard ! "
This unpopularity of Jefferson cast Governor Lewis
into deepest gloom. The benevolent President's system
of peaceable coercion was bringing the country to the
verge of rebellion. England cared not nor France, and
America was stifling with wheat, corn, and cattle, without
a market.
Fur, fur, — the currency and standard of value in St.
Louis was valueless. Taxes even could no longer be paid
in shaved deerskins. Peltry bonds, once worth their
weight in gold, had dropped to nothing. Moths and mil
dew crept into the Chouteau warehouses. A few weeks
more and the fruits of Lisa's adventure would perish.
Into the Clark home there had come an infant boy,
" named Meriwether Lewis," said the General, when the
Governor came to look at the child. Every day now he
came to the cradle, for, weary with cares, the quiet domes
tic atmosphere rested him. He moved his books and
clothes, and the modest little home on the Rue became the
home of the Governor. Beside the fire Julia stitched,
stitched at dainty garments while the General and the
Governor worked on their journals. Now and then their
eyes strayed toward the sleeping infant.
" This child is fairer than Sacajawea's at Clatsop," re
marked Lewis. " But it cries the same, and is liable to
the same ills."
"And did you name a river for Sacajawea, too?"
laughed Julia.
" Certainly, certainly, but the Governor's favourite
river was named Maria," slyly interposed Clark.
A quick flush passed over the Governor's cheek. He
had lately purchased a three-and-a-half arpent piece of
A MYSTERY 339
land north of St. Louis for a home for his mother, — or
was it for Maria? However, in June Clark took Julia
and the baby with him on a trip to Louisville, and the
same month Maria was married to somebody else.
But on the Ohio the joyous activity had ceased. No
longer the boatman's horn rang over cliff and scar. Jef
ferson's embargo had stagnated the waters.
When General Clark returned to St. Louis in July he
found his friend still more embarrassed and depressed.
" My bills are protested," said the Governor. " Here
is one for eighteen dollars rejected by the Secretary of
the Treasury. This has given me infinite concern, as the
fate of others drawn for similar purposes cannot be in
doubt. Their rejection cannot fail to impress the public
mind unfavourably with respect to me."
" And what are these bills for?" inquired Clark.
" Expenses incurred in governing the territory," an
swered Lewis.
General Clark did not have to look back many years
to recall the wreck of his brother on this same snag of
protested bills, and exactly as with George Rogers Clark
the proud and sensitive heart of Meriwether Lewis was
cut to the core.
" More painful than the rejection, is the displeasure
which must arise in the mind of the executive from my
having drawn for public moneys without authority. A
third and not less embarrassing circumstance is that my
private funds are entirely incompetent to meet these bills
if protested."
With the generosity of his nature Clark gave Lewis
one hundred dollars, and Lewis arranged as soon as pos
sible to go to Washington with his vouchers to see the
President.
With the courage of upright convictions, Governor
Lewis contended with the difficulties of his office, and in
due course received the rest of his protested bills. If he
raged at heart he said little. If he spent sleepless nights
tossing, and communing with himself, he spoke no word
to those around him. Though the dagger pierced he
made no sign. Borrowing money of his friends as George
340 THE CONQUEST
Rogers Clark had done, he met his bills as best he might.
But his haggard face and evident illness alarmed his
friends.
" You had better take a trip to the east," they urged.
"' You have malarial fever."
He decided to act on this suggestion, and with the
journals of the western expedition and his vouchers the
Governor bade his friends farewell and dropped down
the river, intending to take a coasting vessel to New
Orleans and pass around to Washington by sea.
But at the Chickasaw Bluffs, now Memphis, Lewis
was ill. Moreover, rumours of war were in the air.
" These precious manuscripts that I have carried now
for so many miles, must not be lost," thought Lewis,
" nor the vouchers of my public accounts on which my
honour rests. I will go by land through the Chickasaw
country."
The United States agent with the Chickasaw Indians,
Major Neely, arriving there two days later, found Lewis
still detained by illness. " I must accompany and watch
over him," he said, when he found that the Governor
was resolved to press on at all hazards. " He is very ill."
One hundred years ago the Natchez trace was a new
military road that had been cut through the wilderness
of Tennessee to the Spanish country. Over this road the
pony express galloped day and night and pioneer caravans
paused at nightfall at lonely wayside inns. Brigands in
fested the forest, hard on the trail of the trader returning
from New Orleans with a pouch of Spanish silver in his
saddlebags.
Over that road Aaron Burr had travelled on his visit
to Andrew Jackson at Nashville, and on it Tecumseh was
even now journeying to the tribes of the south.
" Two of the horses have strayed," was the servant's
report at the end of one day's journey. But even that
could not delay the Governor.
" I will wait for you at the house of the first white
inhabitant on the road," said Lewis, as Neely turned back
for the lost roadsters.
It was evening when the Governor arrived at Grinder's
A MYSTERY 341
stand, the last cabin on the borders of the Chickasaw
country.
" May I stay for the night? " he inquired of the woman
at the door.
" Come you alone ? " she asked.
" My servants are behind. Bring me some wine."
Alighting and bringing in his saddle, the Governor
touched the wine and turned away. Pulling of! his loose
white blue-striped travelling gown, he waited for his
servants.
The woman scanned her guest, — of elegant manners
and courtly bearing, he was evidently a gentleman. But
a troubled look on his face, an impatient walk to and fro,
denoted something wrong. She listened, — he was talk
ing to himself. His sudden wheels and turns and strides
startled her.
:< Where is my powder? I am sure there was some
powder in my canister/' he said to the servants at the
door.
After a mouthful of supper, he suddenly started up,
speaking in a violent manner, flushed and excited. Then,
lighting his pipe, he sat down by the cabin door.
" Madame, this is a very pleasant evening."
Mrs. Grinder noted the kindly tone, the handsome,
haggard face, the air of abstraction. Quietly he smoked
for a time, then again he flushed, arose excitedly, and
stepped into the yard. There he began pacing angrily to
and fro.
But again he sat down to his pipe, and again seemed
composed. He cast his eyes toward the west, that West,
the scene of his toils and triumphs.
" What a sweet evening it is ! " He had seen that same
sun silvering the northern rivers, gilding the peaks of the
Rockies, and sinking into the Pacific. It all came over
him now, like a soothing dream, calming the fevered soul
and stilling its tumult.
The woman was preparing the usual feather-bed for
her guest.
" I beg you, Madame, do not trouble yourself. Pernia,
bring my bearskins and buffalo robe."
342 THE CONQUEST
The skins and robe were spread on the floor and the
woman went away to her kitchen. The house was a
double log cabin with a covered way between. Such
houses abound still in the Cumberland Mountains.
" I am afraid of that man," said the woman in the
kitchen, putting her children in their beds. " Something
is wrong. I cannot sleep."
The servants slept in the barn. Neely had not come.
Night came down with its mysterious veil upon the
frontier cabin.
But still that heavy pace was heard in the other cabin.
Now and then a voice spoke rapidly and incoherently.
" He must be a lawyer," said the woman in the kitchen.
Suddenly she heard the report of a pistol, and something
dropped heavily to the floor. There was a voice, — " O
Lord!"
Excited, peering into the night, the trembling woman
listened. Another pistol, and then a voice at her door,
- " Oh, madame, give me some water and heal my
wounds ! "
Peering into the moonlight between the open unplas-
tered logs, she saw her guest stagger and fall. Presently
he crawled back into the room. Then again he came to
the kitchen door, but did not speak. An empty pail stood
there with a gourd, — he was searching for water. Cow
ering, terrified, there in the kitchen with her children the
woman waited for the light.
At the first break of day she sent two of the children
to the barn to arouse the servants. And there, on his
bearskins on the cabin floor, they found the shattered
frame of Meriwether Lewis, a bullet in his side, a shot
under his chin, and a ghastly wound in his forehead.
"Take my rifle and kill me!" he begged. "I will
give you all the money in my trunk. I am no coward, but
I am so strong, — so hard to die ! Do not be afraid of
me, Pernia, I will not hurt you."
And as the sun rose over the Tennessee trees, Meri
wether Lewis was dead, on the nth of October, 1809.
A LONELY GRAVE IN TENNESSEE 343
VIII
A LONELY GRAVE IN TENNESSEE
A HERO of his country was dead, the Governor of
its largest Territory, — dead, on his way to Wash
ington, where fresh honours awaited him, — dead,
far from friends and kindred in a wild and boundless
forest.
Did he commit suicide in a moment of aberration, or
was he foully murdered by an unknown hand on that nth
of October, 1809? President Jefferson, who had ob
served signs of melancholy in him in early life, favoured
the idea of suicide, but in the immediate neighbourhood
the theory of murder took instant shape. Where was
Joshua Grinder? Where were those servants? Where
was Neely himself?
" I never for a moment entertained the thought of sui
cide," said his mother, when she heard the news. " His
last letter was full of hope. I was to live with him in
St. Louis."
Of all men in the world why should Meriwether Lewis
commit suicide? The question has been argued for a
hundred years and is to-day no nearer solution than ever.
" Old Grinder killed him and got his money," said the
neighbours. " He saw he was well dressed and evidently
a person of distinction and wealth." Grinder was ar
rested and tried but no proof could be secured.
" Alarmed by his groans the robbers hid his pouch of
gold coins in the earth, with the intention of securing it
later," said others. " They never ventured to return, -
it lies there, buried, to this day." And the superstitions
of the neighbourhood have invested the spot with the
weird fascination of Captain Kidd's treasure, or the
buried box of gold on Neacarney.
" He was killed by his French servant," said the Lewis
family. Later, when Pernia visited Charlottesville and
344 THE CONQUEST
sent word to Locust Hill, Meriwether's mother refused
to see him.
John Marks, half-brother of Meriwether Lewis, went
immediately to the scene of tragedy, but nothing more
could be done or learned. Proceeding to St. Louis, the
estate was settled.
When at last the trunks arrived at Washington they
were found to contain the journals, papers on the
protested bills, and the well-known spy-glass used by
Lewis on the expedition. But there were no valuables
or money.
Years after, Meriwether's sister and her husband un
expectedly met Pernia on the streets of Mobile, and Mary
recognised in his possession the William Wirt watch and
the gun of her brother. On demand they were promptly
surrendered.
In the lonely heart of Lewis county, Tennessee, stands
to-day a crumbling gray stone monument with a broken
shaft of limestone erected by the State on the spot where,
in the thirty-fifth year of his age, Meriwether Lewis met
his death. In solitude and desolation, moss overlies his
tomb, but his name lives on, brightening with the years.
IX
TRADE FOLLOWS THE FLAG
jour, Ms'ieu, you want to know where dat
ne?" The polite Creole lifted his cap.
" 'Pears now, maybe I heerd he wuz Guv'ner,"
said the keen-eyed trapper thoughtfully.
" GufFner Lewees ees det, — kilt heeself . Generale
Clark leeves on de Rue Royale, next de Injun office."
In unkempt beard, hair shaggy as a horse's mane, and
clothing all of leather, the stranger climbed the rocky
path, using the stock of his gun for a staff.
It did not take long to find the Indian office. With a
TRADE FOLLOWS THE FLAG 345
dozen lounging braves outside and a council within, sat
William Clark, the Red Head Chief.
General Clark noted the shadow in the door that bright
May morning. Not in vain had these men faced the West
together.
"Bless me, it's Coalter! Where have you been?
How did you come?"
From the mountains, three thousand miles in thirty
days, in a small canoe, Coalter had come flying down
the melting head-snows of the Rockies. He was haggard
with hunger and loss of sleep.
Leading his old companion to the cottage, Clark soon
had him surrounded with the comforts of a civilised meal.
Refreshed, gradually the trapper unfolded his tale.
When John Coalter left Lewis and Clark at the Mandan
towns and went back with Hancock and Dickson, in that
Summer of 1806, they, the first of white men, entered the
Yellowstone Park of to-day. In the Spring, separating
from his companions, Coalter set out for St. Louis in a
solitary canoe. At the mouth of the Platte he met Manuel
Lisa and Drouillard coming up. And with them, John
Potts, another of the Lewis and Clark soldiers. On the
spot Coalter re-enlisted and returned a third time to the
wilderness.
Such a man was invaluable to that first venture in the
north. After Lisa had stockaded his fort at the mouth
of the Bighorn, he sent Coalter to bring the Indians.
Alone he set out with gun and knapsack, travelled five
hundred miles, and brought in his friends the Crows.
That laid the foundation of Lisa's fortune.
When Lisa came down with his furs in the Spring,
Coalter and Potts with traps on their backs set out for
the beaver-meadows of the Three Forks, the Madison,
the Jefferson, and the Gallatin.
" We knew those Blackfoot sarpints would spare no
chance to skelp us," said Coalter, " so we sot our traps by
night an' tuk 'em afore daylight. Goin' up a creek six
miles from the Jefferson, examinin' our traps one mornin',
on a suddent we heerd a great noise. But the banks wuz
high an' we cud n't see.
346 THE CONQUEST
" ' Blackfeet, Potts. Let 's retreat/ sez I.
" ' Blackfut nuthin'. Ye must be a coward. Thet 's
buffaloes/ sez Potts. An' we kep' on.
" In a few minutes five or six hunderd Injuns appeared
on both sides uv the creek, beckonin' us ashore. I saw
't warnt no use an' turned the canoe head in.
" Ez we touched, an Injun seized Potts' rifle. I jumped
an' grabbed an' handed it back to Potts in the canoe. He
tuk it an' pushed off.
" An' Injun let fly an arrer. Jest ez I heard it whizz,
Potts cried, * Coalter, I 'm wounded.'
' Don't try to get off, Potts, come ashore/ I urged.
But no, he levelled his rifle and shot a Blackfoot dead on
the spot. Instanter they riddled Potts, — dead, he floated
down stream.
' Then they seized and stripped me. I seed 'em
consultin'.
' Set 'im up fer a target/ said some. I knew ther
lingo, lernt it 'mongst the Crows, raound Lisa's fort,
at the Bighorn. But the chief asked me, ' Can ye run
fast?'
' No, very bad runner/ I answered."
Clark smiled. Well he remembered Coalter as the
winner in many a racing bout.
'' The chief led me aout on the prairie, ' Save yerself
ef ye can.'
" Et thet instant I heerd, ' Whoop-ahahahahah-hooh ! '
like ten thousand divils, an' I Hew.
11 It wuz six miles to the Jefferson ; the graound wuz
stuck like a pinquishen with prickly-pear an' sand burrs,
cuttin' my bare feet, but I wuz half acrosst before I ven
tured to look over the shoulder. The sarpints ware
pantin' an' fallin' behind an' scatterin'. But one with a
spear not more 'n a hunderd y cards behind was gainin'.
" I made another bound, — blood gushed from my nos
trils. Nearer, nearer I heerd his breath and steps, ex-
pectin' every minute to feel thet spear in my back.
" Agin I looked. Not twenty yeards behind he ran.
On a suddint I stopped, turned, and spread my arms.
The Blackfoot, astonished at the blood all over my front,
TRADE FOLLOWS THE FLAG 347
perhaps, tried to stop but stumbled an' fell and broke his
spear. I ran back, snatched the point, and pinned him to
the earth.
" The rest set up a hidjus yell. While they stopped
beside ther fallen comrade, almost faintin' I ran inter the
cottonwoods on the borders uv the shore an' plunged ento
the river.
" Diving under a raft of drift-timber agin the upper
point of a little island, I held my head up in a little open
ing amongst the trunks of trees covered with limbs and
brushwood.
" Screechin', yellin' like so many divils, they come onto
the island. Thro' the chinks I seed 'em huntin', huntin',
huntin', all day long. I only feared they might set the
raft on fire.
" But at night they gave it up ; the voices grew faint
and fer away; I swam cautiously daown an' acrost, an'
landin' travelled all night.
" But I wuz naked. The broilin' sun scorched my skin,
my feet were filled with prickly-pears, an' I wuz hungry.
Game, game plenty on the hills, but I hed no gun. It was
seven days to Lisa's fort on the Bighorn.
" I remembered the Injun turnip that Sacajawea found
in there, an' lived on it an' sheep sorrel until I reached
Lisa's fort, blistered from head to heel."
As in a vision the General saw it all. Judy's eyes were
filled with tears. Through the Gallatin, the Indian Valley
of Flowers, where Bozeman stands to-day, the lonely
trapper had toiled in the July sun and over the Bozeman
Pass, whither Clark's cavalcade had ridden two summers
before.
Six years now had Coalter been gone from civilisation,
but he had discovered the Yellowstone Park. No one in
St. Louis would believe his stories of hot water spouting
in fountains, " Coalter' s Hell," but William Clark traced
his route on the map that he sent for publication.
John Coalter now received his delayed reward for the
expedition, — double pay and three hundred acres of land,
— and went up to find Boone at Charette.
"What! Pierre Menard!" Another boat had come
348 THE CONQUEST
out of the north. General Clark grasped the horny hand
of the fur trader. " What luck? "
" Bad, bad," gloomily answered the trader with a shake
of his flowing mane. " Drouillard is dead, and the rest
are likely soon to be."
" What do you mean?"
"Blackfeet!"
Clark guessed all, even before he heard the full details
behind locked doors of the Missouri Fur Company at the
warehouse of Pierre Chouteau.
" As you knew," began Menard, " we spent last winter
at Fort Lisa on the Bighorn. When Lisa started down
here in March we packed our traps on horses, crossed to
the Three Forks, and built a double stockade of logs at
the confluence of the rivers. Every night the men came
in with beaver, beaver, beaver. We confidently expected
to bring down not less than three hundred packs this fall
but that hope is shattered. On the I2th of April our men
were ambuscaded by Blackfeet. Five were killed. All
their furs, traps, horses, guns, and equipments are
without doubt by this time at Fort Edmonton on the
Saskatchewan."
" But you expected to visit the Snakes and Flatheads,"
suggested one to rouse the despondent trader from his
revery.
" I did. And the object was to obtain a Blackfoot
prisoner if possible in order to open communication with
his tribe. They are the most unapproachable Indians we
have known. They refuse all overtures.
" Just outside the fort Drouillard was killed. A high
wind was blowing at the time, so he was not heard, but
the scene of the conflict indicated a desperate defence.
" Despair seized our hunters. They refused to go out.
Indeed, it was impossible to go except in numbers, so
Henry and I concluded it was best to report. I set out by
night, and here I am, with these men and thirty packs of
beaver. God pity poor Henry at the Three Forks ! "
Thus at one blow were shattered the high hopes of the
Missouri Fur Company. All thought of Andrew Henry,
tall, slender, blue-eyed, dark-haired, a man that spoke
TRADE FOLLOWS THE FLAG 349
seldom, but of great deeds. Would he survive a winter
among the Blackfeet?
But there was another cause of disquiet to the Missouri
Fur Company.
" Have you heard of John Jacob Astor?"
"What?"
" He has gone with Wilson Price Hunt to Montreal to
engage men for an expedition to the Columbia."
" What, Hunt who kept an Indian shop here on the
Rue ? " They all knew him. He had come to St. Louis
in 1804 and become an adept in outfitting.
Two or three times Astor had offered to buy stock in
the Missouri Fur Company but had been refused. Jef
ferson himself had recommended him to Lewis. Now
he was carrying trade into the fur country over their
heads. Already he had a great trade on the lakes, and to
the headwaters of the Mississippi. He had profited by
the surrender of Detroit and Mackinaw. Another stride
took him to the Falls of St. Anthony ; and now, along the
trail of Lewis and Clark he planned to be first on the
Pacific. With ships by sea and caravans by land, he
could at last accomplish the wished-for trade to China.
" But I, too, planned the Pacific trade," said Manuel
Lisa, coming down in the Autumn. There was some
jealousy that a New York man should be first to follow
the trail to the sea.
The winter was one of anxiety, for Astor' s men had
arrived in St. Louis and had gone up the Missouri to camp
until Spring. Anxiety, too, for Andrew Henry, out there
alone in the Blackfoot country.
Could they have been gifted with sufficient sight, the
partners in St. Louis might even then have seen the brave
Andrew Henry fighting for his life on that little tongue
of land between the Madison and the Jefferson. No trap
ping could be done. It was dangerous to go any distance
from the fort except in large parties. Fearing the entire
destruction of his little band, Henry moved across the
mountains into the Oregon country, and wintered on
what is now Henry's Fork of the river Snake, the first
American stronghold on the Columbia.
350 THE CONQUEST
" We must exterminate Hunt's party," said Manuel
Lisa.
" No," said Pierre Chouteau. " Next year he will
send again and again, and in time will exterminate us.
Your duty will be to protect his men on the water, and
may God Almighty have mercy on them in the mountains,
for they will never reach their destination."
From his new home at Charette John Coalter saw
Astor's people going by, bound for the Columbia. To
his surprise they inquired for him.
" General Clark told us you were the best informed
man in the country."
Coalter told them of the hostility of the Blackfeet and
the story of his escape. He longed to return with them
to the mountains, but he had just married a squaw and he
decided to stay. Moreover, a twinge in his limbs warned
him that that plunge in the Jefferson had given him
rheumatism for life.
Daniel Boone, standing on the bank at Charette when
Hunt went by, came down and examined their outfit.
" Jist returned from my traps on the Creek," he said,
pointing to sixty beaver skins.
Tame beavers and otters, caught on an island opposite
Charette Creek, were playing around his cabin. And his
neighbours had elk and deer and buffalo, broken to the
yoke.
Several seasons had Boone with his old friend Callo-
way trapped on the Kansas; now he longed for the
mountains.
" Another year and I, too, will go to the Yellowstone,"
said Daniel Boone.
" Andrew Henry must be rescued. His situation is
desperate. He may be dead," said General Clark, Presi
dent of the Missouri Fur Company at St. Louis.
Three weeks behind Hunt, Lisa set out in a swift barge
propelled by twenty oars, with a swivel on the bow and
two blunderbusses in the cabin. Lisa had been a sea-
captain, — he rigged his boat with a good mast, mainsail
and topsail, and led his men with a ringing boat-song.
Then followed a keelboat race of a thousand miles up
TRADE FOLLOWS THE FLAG 351
the Missouri. June 2 Lisa caught up with Hunt near the
present Bismarck, and met Andrew Henry coming down
with forty packs of beaver.
To avoid the hostile Blackfeet, Hunt bought horses
and crossed through the Yellowstone-Crow country to
the abandoned fort of Henry on the Snake, and on to
the Columbia.
Aboard that barge with Lisa went Sacajawea. True
to her word, she had brought the little Touissant down
to St. Louis, where Clark placed him with the Catholic
sisters to be trained for an interpreter. Sacajawea was
dressed as a white woman ; she had quickly adopted their
manners and language; but, in the words of a chron
icler who saw her there, " she had become sickly, and
longed to revisit her native country. Her husband also
had become wearied of civilised life."
So back they went to the Minnetarees, bearing pipes
from Clark to the chiefs. Five hundred dollars a year
Charboneau now received as Indian agent for the United
States. For more than thirty years he held his post, and
to this day his name may be traced in the land of Dakota.
We can see Sacajawea now, startled and expectant,
her heart beating like a trip-hammer under her bodice,
looking at Julia ! No dreams of her mountains had ever
shown such sunny hair, such fluffs of curls, like moonrise
on the water. And that diaphanous cloud, — was it a
dress? No Shoshone girl ever saw such buckskin, finer
than blossom of the bitter-root.
" I am come," said Sacajawea.
A whole year she had tarried among the whites, quickly
accommodating herself to their ways. But in the level
St. Louis she dreamed of her northland, and now she was
going home!
352 THE CONQUEST
TECUMSEH
" "¥"T is madness to contend against the whites," said
I Black Hoof, chief of the Shawnees. " The more
Awe fight the more they come."
He had led raids against Boonsboro, watched the Ohio,
and sold scalps at Detroit. Three times his town was
burnt behind him, twice by Clark and once by Wayne.
Then he gave up, signed the treaty at Greenville, and
for ever after kept the peace. Now he was living with
a band of Shawnees at Cape Girardeau, and made fre
quent visits to his old friend, Daniel Boone.
Indian Phillips was with those who besieged Boons
boro. Phillips was a white man stolen as a child who
had always lived with the Shawnees. To him Daniel
Boone was the closest of friends. They hunted together
and slept together. Boone took Phillips' bearskins and
sold them with his own in St. Louis.
" If I should die while I am out with you, Phillips, you
must mark my grave and tell the folks so they can carry
me home."
Long after those Indians in the West had welcomed
Boone's sons, an old squaw said, " I was an adopted
sister during his captivity with the Ohio Indians."
Sometimes Boone went over to Cape Girardeau, and
sat with his friends talking over old times.
" Do you remember, Dan," Phillips would say, " when
we had you prisoner at Detroit? You remember the
British traders gave you a horse and saddle and Black
Fish adopted you, and you and he made an agreement
you would lead him to Boonsboro and make them sur
render and bury the tomahawk, and live like brothers
and sisters ? "
" Yes, I remember," said Boone, smiling at the recol
lection of those arts of subterfuge.
TECUMSEH 353
" Do you remember one warm day when Black Fish
said, ' Dan, the corn is in good roasting ears. I would
like to have your horse and mine in good condition be
fore we start to Boonsboro. We need a trough to feed
them in. I will show you a big log that you can dig out.'
Black Fish led you to a big walnut log. You worked a
while and then lay down. Black Fish came and said,
' Well, Dan, you have n't done much/
" ' No/ you answered, * you and your squaw call me
your son, but you don't love me much. When I am at
home I don't work this way, — I have negroes to work
for me.'
" ' Well,' said Black Fish, ' come to camp and stay with
your brothers.' '
Quietly the two old men chuckled together. Boone
always called Black Fish, father, and when he went
hunting brought the choicest bit to the chief.
But now Boone' s visits to Girardeau were made with
a purpose.
" What is Tecumseh doing? "
" Tecumseh ? He says no tribe can sell our lands. He
refuses to move out of Ohio."
Old Black Hoof had pulled away from Tecumseh.
The Shooting Star refused to attend Wayne's treaty at
Greenville. In 1805 he styled himself a chief, and organ
ised the young blood of the Shawnees into a personal
band.
About this time Tecumseh met Rebecca Galloway,
whose father, James Galloway, had moved over from
Kentucky to settle near Old Chillicothe. At the Gallo
way hearth Tecumseh was ever a welcome guest.
'' Teach me to read the white man's book," said Tecum
seh to the fair Rebecca.
With wonderful speed the young chief picked up the
English alphabet. Hungry for knowledge, he read and
read and Rebecca read to him. Thereafter in his wonder
ful war and peace orations, Tecumseh used the language
of his beloved Rebecca. For, human-like, the young chief
lost his heart to the white girl. Days went by, dangerous
days, while Rebecca was correcting Tecumseh' s speech,
23
354 THE CONQUEST
enlarging his English vocabulary, and reading to him
from the Bible.
" Promise me, Tecumseh, never, never will you permit
the massacre of helpless women and children after cap
ture." Tecumseh promised.
" And be kind to the poor surrendered prisoner."-"
" I will be kind," said Tecumseh.
But time was fleeting, — game was disappearing, —
Tecumseh was an Indian. His lands were slipping from
under his feet.
It was useless to speak to the fair Rebecca. Terrified
at the fire she had kindled, she saw him no more. En
raged, wrathful, he returned to his band. Tecumseh
never loved any Indian woman. A wife or two he tried,
then bade them " Begone! "
When Lewis and Clark returned from the West, Te
cumseh and his brother, the Prophet, were already plan
ning a vast confederation to wipe out the whites.
Jefferson heard of these things.
"He is visionary," said the President, and let him go
on unmolested.
" The Seventeen Fires are cheating us ! " exclaimed
Tecumseh. " The Delawares, Miamis, and Pottawatta-
mies have sold their lands! The Great Spirit gave the
land to all the Indians. No tribe can sell without the
consent of all. The whites have driven us from the sea-
coast, — they will shortly push us into the Lakes."
The Governor-General of Canada encouraged him.
Then came rumours of Indian activity. Like the Her
mit of old, Tecumseh went out to rouse the redmen in a
crusade against the whites. Still Jefferson paid no heed.
About the time that Clark and his bride came down
the Ohio, the distracted Indians were swarming on Tip-
pecanoe Creek, a hundred miles from Fort Dearborn, the
future 'Chicago. All Summer, whisperings came into
St. Louis, " Tecumseh is persuading the Sacs, Foxes,
and Osages to war."
" I will meet the Sacs and Foxes," said Lewis.
Clark went out and quieted the Osages. Boone's son
and Auguste Chouteau went with him.
TECUMSEH 355
" The Great Spirit bids you destroy Vincennes and
sweep the Ohio to the mouth," was the Prophet's re
ported advice to the Chippewas.
" Give up our land and buy no more, and I will ally
with the United States," said Tecumseh to General Har
rison at Vincennes, in August of 1809.
" It cannot be," said Harrison.
' Then I will make war and ally with England," re
torted the defiant chieftain.
The frontier had much to fear from an Indian war.
More and more vagrant red men hovered around St.
Louis, — Sacs, Foxes, Osages, who had seen Tecumseh.
The Illinois country opposite swarmed with them, mak
ing raids on the farmers, killing stock, stealing horses.
Massacres and depredations began.
: 'T is time to fortify," said Daniel Boone to his sons
and neighbours.
In a little while nine forts had been erected in St.
Charles county alone, and every cabin was stockaded.
The five stockades at Boone' s Lick met frequent assaults.
Black Hawk was there, the trusted lieutenant of Tecum
seh. The whole frontier became alarmed.
Then Manuel Lisa came down the river.
' The British are sending wampum to the Sioux. All
the Missouri nations are urged to join the confederacy."
In fact, the Prophet with his mystery fire was visiting
all the northwest tribes, even the Blackfeet. Ten thou
sand Indians promised to follow him back. Dressed in
white buckskin, with eagle feathers in his hair, Tecumseh,
on a spirited black pony, came to Gomo and Black Par
tridge on Peoria Lake in the summer of 1810.
" I cannot join you," said Black Partridge, the Pot-
tawattamie, holding up a silver medal. " This token was
given to me at Greenville by the great chief [Wayne].
On it you see the face of our father at Washington. As
long as this hangs on my neck I can never raise my toma
hawk against the whites."
Gomo refused. " Long ago the Big Knife [George
Rogers Clark] came to Kaskaskia and sent for the chiefs
of this river. We went. He desired us to remain still
356 THE CONQUEST
in our own villages, saying that the Americans were able,
of themselves, to fight the British."
" Will anything short of the complete" conquest of the
Canadas enable us to prevent their influence on our In
dians?" asked Governor Edwards of Illinois. Edwards
and Clark planned together for the protection of the
frontier.
In July, 1811, Tecumseh went to Vincennes and held
a last stormy interview with Harrison without avail.
Immediately he turned south to the Creeks, Choctaws,
Chickasaws, and Seminoles. They watched him with
kindling eyes.
" Brothers, you do not mean to fight ! " thundered Te
cumseh to the hesitating Creeks. " You do not believe
the Great Spirit has sent me. You shall know. From
here I go straight to Detroit. When I arrive there I
shall stamp on the ground, and shake down every house
in this village."
As Tecumseh strode into the forest the terrified Creeks
watched. They counted the days. Then came the awful
quaking and shaking of the New Madrid earthquake.
" Tecumseh has reached Detroit ! Tecumseh has
reached Detroit!" cried the frantic Creeks, as their
wigwams tumbled about them.
Tecumseh was coming leisurely up among the tribes
of Missouri, haranguing Black Hoof at Cape Girardeau,
Osages, and Kickapoos, and lowas at Des Moines.
But Tippecanoe had been fought and lost.
" There is to be an attack," said George Rogers Clark
Floyd, tapping at the door of Harrison's tent at three
o'clock in the morning of November 7, 1811. Harrison
sprang to his horse and with him George Croghan and
John O'Fallon.
It was a battle for possession. Every Indian trained
by Tecumseh knew his country depended upon it. Every
white knew he must win or the log cabin must go. In
the darkness and rain the combatants locked in the
death struggle of savagery against civilisation. Tecum
seh reached the Wabash to find the wreck of Tippecanoe.
" Wretch ! " he cried to his brother, " vou have ruined
TECUMSEH 357
all ! " Seizing the Prophet by the hair, Tecumseh shook
him and beat him and cuffed him and almost killed him,
then dashed away to Canada and offered his tomahawk
to Great Britain.
" The danger is not over," said Clark after Harrison's
battle.
To save as many Indians as possible from the machina
tions of Tecumseh, immediately after Tippecanoe Clark
summoned the neighbouring tribes to a council at St.
Louis. Over the winter snows the runners sped, calling
them in for a trip to Washington.
It was May of 1812 when Clark got together his chiefs
of the Great and Little Osages, Sacs, Foxes, Shawnees,
and Delawares.
" Ahaha ! Great Medicine ! " whispered the Indians,
when General Clark discovered their wily plans.
Nothing could be hid from the Red Head Chief.
Feared and beloved, none other could better have handled
the inflammable tribes at that moment. Old chiefs among
them remembered his brother of the Long Knives, and
looked upon this Clark as his natural successor. And
the General took care not to dispel this fancy, but on
every occasion strengthened and deepened it.
Never before in St. Louis had Indians been watched so
strenuously. Moody, taciturn, repelling familiarity, they
bore the faces of men who knew secrets. Tecumseh had
whispered in their ear. " Shall we listen to Tecumseh? "
They were wavering.
Cold, impassively stoic, they heeded no question when
citizens impelled by curiosity or friendly feeling endeav
oured to draw them into conversation. If pressed too
closely, the straight forms lifted still more loftily, and
wrapping their blankets closer about them the council
chiefs strode contemptuously away.
But if Clark spoke, every eye was attention.
" Before we go," said Clark, " I advise you to make
peace with one another and bury the hatchet."
They did, and for the most part kept it for ever.
It was May 5 when Clark started with his embassy of
ninety chiefs to see their " Great God, the President," as
358 THE CONQUEST
they called Madison, following the old trail to Vincennes,
Louisville, and Pittsburg. Along with them went a body
guard of soldiers, and also Mrs. Clark, her maids, and
the two little boys, on the way to Fincastle. Mrs. Clark's
especial escort was John O'Fallon, nineteen years of
age, aide to Harrison at Tippecanoe, who had come to,
his uncle at St. Louis immediately after the battle.
In their best necklaces of bears' claws the chiefs ar
rived at Washington. War had been declared against
Great Britain. There was a consultation with the
President.
" We, too, have declared war," announced the redmen,
as they strode with Clark from the White House. But
Black Hawk of the Rock River Sacs was not there. He
had followed Tecumseh.
About the same time, on the eastern bank of the Detroit
river Tecumseh was met by anxious Ohio chiefs who re
membered Wayne.
" Let us remain neutral," they pleaded. " This is the
white man's war."
Tecumseh shook his tomahawk above the Detroit.
" My bones shall bleach on this shore before I will join
in any council of neutrality."
" The Great Father over the Big Water will never bury
his war-club until he quiets these troublers of the earth,"
said General Brock to Tecumseh' s redmen. Then came
larger gifts than ever from " their British Father."
"War is declared! Go," said Tecumseh, "cut off Fort
Dearborn before they hear the news ! " Two emissaries
from Tecumseh came flying into the Illinois.
That night the Indians started for Chicago on her
lonely lake. Black Partridge mounted his pony and
tried to dissuade them. He could not. Then spurring
he reached Fort Dearborn first. With tears he threw
down his medal before the astonished commander.
" My young men have gone on the warpath. Here is
your medal. I will not wear an emblem of friendship
when I am compelled to act as an enemy."
Before the sun went down the shores of Lake Michi
gan were red with the blood of men, women, and chil-
TECUMSEH 359
dren. Like the Rhine of old France, the lakes were still
the fighting border.
President Madison felt grateful to Clark for the step
he had taken with the Indians.
" Will you command the army at Detroit? "
" I can do more for my country by attending to the
Indians/' was the General's modest reply.
The country waited to hear that Hull had taken Upper
Canada. Instead the shocked nation heard, " Hull has
surrendered! "
"Hull has surrendered!"
Runners flew among the Indians to the remotest border,
— the Creeks heard it before their white neighbours.
Little Crow and his Sioux snatched up the war hatchet.
Detroit had fallen with Tecumseh and Brock at the head
of the Anglo-Indian army.
" We shall drive these Americans back across the
Ohio," said General Brock.
At this, the old and popular wish of the Lake Indians,
large numbers threw aside their scruples and joined in
the war that followed.
In December General Clark was appointed Governor
of the newly organised territory of Missouri.
Meanwhile in the buff and blue stage coach, a huge
box mounted on springs, Julia and her children were
swinging toward Fotheringay. The air was hot and
dusty, the leather curtains were rolled up to catch the
slightest breeze, and the happy though weary occupants
looked out on the Valley of Virginia.
Forty miles a day the coach horses travelled, leaving
them each evening a little nearer their destination. The
small wayside inns lacked comforts, but such as they
were our travellers accepted thankfully. Now and then
the post-rider blew his horn and dashed by them, or in
the heat of the day rode leisurely in the shade of poplars
along the road, furtively reading the letters of his pack
as he paced in the dust.
And still over the mountains were pouring white-
topped Conestoga waggons, careening down like boats
at sea, laden with cargoes of colonial ware, pewter, and
360 THE CONQUEST
mahogany. The golden age of coaching times had come,
and magnificent horses, dappled grays and bays in scar
let-fringed housings and jingling bells, seemed bearing
away the world on wheels.
To the new home Julia was coming, at Fotheringay.
Before the coach stopped Julia perceived through en
shrining trees Black Granny standing in the wide hall
way. Throwing up her apron over her woolly head to
hide the tears of joy, —
" Laws a-honey ! Miss Judy done come hum ! "
" Fotheringay ! " sang out the dusty driver with an
unusual flourish of whip-lash and echo-waking blast of
the postillion's horn. In a trice the steps were down, and
surrounded by babies and bandboxes, brass nail-studded
hair trunks and portmanteaus of pigskin, " Miss Judy "
was greeted by the entire sable population of Fotherin
gay. Light-footed as a girl she ran forward to greet her
father, Colonel Hancock. The Colonel hastened to his
daughter, —
" Hull has surrendered," he said.
XI
CLARK GUARDS THE FRONTIER
THE Indian hunt was over ; they were done making
their sugar ; the women were planting corn. The
warriors hid in the thick foliage of the river bor
ders, preparing for war.
" Madison has declared war against England ! "
The news was. hailed with delight. Now would end
this frightful suspense. In Illinois alone, fifteen hundred
savages under foreign machinations held in terror forty
thousand white people, — officers and soldiers of George
Rogers Clark and others who had settled on the unde
fended prairies.
"Detroit has fallen!"
CLARK GUARDS THE FRONTIER 361
" Mackinac is gone ! "
" The savages have massacred the garrison at Fort
Dearborn ! "
:' They are planning to attack the settlements on the
Mississippi. If the Sioux join the confederacy — "
cheeks paled at the possibility.
The greatest body of Indians in America resided on the
Mississippi. Who could say at what hour the waters
would resound with their whoops? Thousands of them
could reach St. Louis or Cahokia from their homes in five
or six days. Immense quantities of British gifts were
coming from the Lakes to the Indians at Peoria, Rock
Island, Des Moines.
' Yes, we shall attack when the corn is ripe," said the
Indians at Fort Madison.
" Unless I hear shortly of more assistance than a few
rangers I shall bury my papers in the ground, send my
family off, and fight as long as possible," said Edwards,
the Governor of Illinois.
In Missouri, surrounded by Pottawattamies, cham
pion horsethieves of the frontier, and warlike Foxes,
lowas, and Kickapoos, the settlers ploughed their fields
with sentinels on guard. Horns hung at their belts to
blow as a signal of danger. In the quiet hour by the fire
side, an Indian would steal into the postern gate and shoot
the father at the hearth, the mother at her evening task.
Presently the settlers withdrew into the forts, unable
to raise crops. With corn in the cabin loft, the bear hunt
in the fall, the turkey hunt at Christmas, and venison
hams kept over from last year, still there was plenty.
Daniel (0oone, the patriarch of about forty families,
ever on the lookout with his long thin eagle face, ruled
by advice and example. The once light flaxen hair was
gray, but even yet Boone's step was springy as the In
dian's, as gun in hand he watched around the forts.
Maine, Montana, each has known it all, the same run
ning fights of Kentucky and Oregon. Woe to the little
children playing outside the forted village, — woe to the
lad driving home the cows, — woe to the maid at milking
time.
362 THE CONQUEST
The alarm was swelled by Quas-qua-ma, a chief of the
Sacs, a very pacific Indian and friend of the whites, who
came by night to bring warning and consult Clark. In
his search Quas-qua-ma tip-toed from porch to porch.
Frightened habitants peered through the shutters.
"What ees wanted?"
" The Red Head Chief."
But Clark had not arrived.
" We must take this matter into our own hands," said
the people. " British and Indians came once from Macki-
nac. They may again."
" Mackinac ? They are at Fort Madison now, murder
ing our regulars and rangers. How long since they
burned our boats and cargoes at Fort Bellevue? Any
day they may drop down on St. Louis."
" We must fortify."
" The old bastions may be made available for service."
" The old Spanish garrison tower must be refitted for
the women and children."
Such were the universal conclusions. Men went up the
river to the islands to bring down logs. Another party
set to work to dig a wide, deep ditch for a regular
stockade.
When Clark arrived to begin his duties as Territorial
Governor he found St. Louis bordering on a state of
panic. There was the cloud-shadow of the north. Below,
one thousand Indians, Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws,
Creeks, and Catawbas on a branch of the Arkansas within
three days' journey of Saint Genevieve were crossing the
river at Chickasaw Bluffs. Tecumseh's belts of wampum
were flying everywhere.
In their best necklaces of bears' claws Clark's ninety
chiefs came home, laden with tokens of esteem. Civilised
military dress had succeeded the blanket; the wild fierce
air was gone.
" We have declared war against Kinchotch [King
George]," said the proud chiefs, taking boat to keep their
tribes quiet along the west.
A sense of security returned to St. Louis. WTould they
not act as a barrier to tribes more remote ? The plan for
CLARK GUARDS THE FRONTIER 363
local fortification was abandoned, but a cordon of family
blockhouses was built from Bellefontaine to Kaskaskia,
a line seventy-five miles in length, along which the rangers
rode daily, watching the red marauders of Illinois. The
Mississippi was picketed with gunboats.
" Whoever holds Prairie du Chien holds the Upper
Mississippi," said Governor Clark. " I will go there
and break up that rendezvous of British and Indians."
Who better than Clark knew the border and the In
dian ? He could ply the oar, or level the rifle, or sleep at
night on gravel stones.
" It requires time and a little smoking with Indians if
you wish to have peace with them."
As soon as possible a gunboat, the Governor Clark,
and several smaller boats, manned with one hundred and
fifty volunteers and sixty regular troops, went up into
the hostile country. Fierce Sacs glared from Rock Island,
Foxes paused in their lead digging at Dubuque's mines,
— lead for British cannon.
Although on Missouri territory, Prairie du Chien was
still occupied by Indians and traders to the exclusion of
Americans. Six hundred, seven hundred miles above
St. Louis, a little red bird whispered up the Mississippi,
" Long Knives coming! " The traders retired.
" Whoever enjoys the trade of the Indians will have
control of their affections and power," said Clark. " Too
long have we left this point unfortified."
A great impression had been made on the savages by
the liberality of the British traders. Their brilliant red
coats — " Eenah ! eenah ! eenamah ! " exclaimed the
Sioux.
But now the Long Knives ! Wabasha, son of Wabasha
of the Revolution, remembered the Long Knives. When
Clark arrived at Prairie du Chien Wabasha refused to
fight him. Red Wing came down to the council. Upon
his bosom Rising Moose proudly exhibited a medal given
him by Captain Pike in 1805. The Indians nicknamed
him " Tammaha, the Pike."
Twenty-five leagues above Tammaha' s village lived
Wabasha, and twenty-five above Wabasha, the Red Wing,
364 THE CONQUEST
all great chiefs of the Sioux, all very friendly now to the
Long Knife who had come up in his gunboat.
Since time immemorial Wabasha had been a friend of
the British, twice had he, the son of Wabasha I., been to
Quebec and received flags and medals. But now he re
membered Captain Pike who visited their northern waters
while Lewis and Clark were away at the west. Grasping
the hand of Clark, —
" We have the greatest friendship for the United
States," said the chiefs, — all except Little Crow. He
was leading a war party to the Lakes.
Leaving troops to erect a fort and maintain a garrison
at the old French Prairie du Chien, Governor Clark re
turned to his necessary duties at St. Louis. Behind on
the river remained the gunboat to guard the builders.
"A fort at the Prairie?" cried the British traders at
Mackinac. That cuts off our Dakota trade." And forth
with an expedition was raised to capture the garrison.
Barely was the rude fortification completed before a
force of British and Chippewas were marching upon it.
" I will not fight the Big Knives any more," said Red
Wing.
:<Why?" asked the traders.
" The lion and the eagle fight. Then the lion will go
home and leave us to the eagle." Red Wing was famed
for foretelling events at Prairie du Chien.
In June Manuel Lisa came down the Missouri.
" De Arrapahoe, Arikara, Gros Ventre, and Crow are
at war wit' de American. De British Nort'west traders
embroil our people wit' de sauvages to cut dem off ! "
" We must extend the posts of St. Louis to the British
border," cautioned Clark to Lisa. " And if necessary
arm the Yanktons and Omahas against the Sacs and
lowas. I herewith commission you, Lisa, my especial
sub-agent among the nations of the Missouri to keep
them at peace."
Very well Clark knew whom he was trusting. Now
that war had crippled the Missouri Fur Company, Lisa
alone represented them in the field. Familiar with the
fashions of Indians, the size and colour of the favourite
CLARK GUARDS THE FRONTIER 365
blanket, the shape and length of tomahawks, no trader
was more a favourite than Manuel Lisa. Besides, he still
maintained the company's posts, — Council Bluffs wdth
the Omahas, six hundred miles up the Missouri, and
another at the Sioux, six hundred miles further still,
with two hundred hunters in his employ. Here was a
force not to be despised.
Ten months in the year Lisa was buried in the wilder
ness, hid in the forest and the prairie, far from his wife
in St. Louis. Wily, winning, and strategic, no trader
knew Indians better.
" And," continued the Governor, " I offer you five hun
dred dollars for sub-agent's salary."
" A poor five hundred tollar ! " laughed Lisa. " Eet
will not buy te tobacco which I give annually to dose who
call me Fader. But Lisa will go. His interests and dose
of de Government are one."
Then after a moment's frowning reflection, — "I haf
suffered enough," almost wailed Lisa, " I haf suffered
enough in person and in property under a different gov
ernment, to know how to appreciate de one under w'ich
I now live."
Even while they were consulting, "Here is your friend,
de Rising Moose!" announced old Antoine Le Claire.
" Rising Moose? " Governor Clark started to his feet
as one of the Prairie du Chien chiefs came striding
through the door.
" The fort is taken, but I will not fight the Long Knife.
Tammaha is an American."
All the way down on the gunboat riddled with bullets,
Tammaha had come with the fleeing soldiers to offer his
tomahawk to Governor Clark. The guns were not yet
in when the enemy swept down on the fort at Prairie
du Chien.
" Prairie du Chien lost? It shall be recovered. Wait
until Spring."
And the British, too, said, " Wait until Spring and we
will take St. Louis." But they feared the gunboats.
Governor Clark accepted Tammaha' s service, commis
sioning him a chief of the - Red Wing band of Sioux.
366 THE CONQUEST
" Wait and go up with Lisa. Tell your people the Long
Knife counsels them to remain quiet."
When Lisa set out for the north as agent of both the
fur business and that of the Government, he carried with
him mementoes and friendly reminders to all the principal
chiefs of the northern tribes.
Big Elk of the Omahas, Black Cat and Big White of
the Mandans, Le Borgne of the Minnetarees, even the
chiefs of the dreaded Teton Sioux were not forgotten.
The Red Head had been there, had visited their country.
He was the son of their Great Father, — they would
listen to the Red Head Chief.
At this particular juncture of our national history,
Clark the Red Head and Manuel Lisa the trader formed
a fortunate combination for the interests of the United
States. Their words to the northern chiefs were weighty.
Their gifts were continued pledges of sacred friendship.
While the eyes of the nation were rivetted on the conflict
in the East and on the ocean, Clark held the trans-Missis
sippi with even a stronger grip than his illustrious brother
had held the trans-Alleghany thirty years before.
Along with Lisa up the Missouri to the Dakotas went
Tammaha, the Rising Moose, and crossed to Prairie du
Chien.
" Where do you come from and what business have
you here?" cried the British commander, rudely jerking
Tammaha' s bundle from his back and examining it for
letters.
" I come from St. Louis," answered the Moose. " I
promised the Long Knife I would come to Prairie du
Chien and here I am."
" Lock him in the guard house. He ought to be shot ! "
roared the officer.
" I am ready for death if you choose to kill me," an
swered Rising Moose.
At last in the depth of winter they sent him away.
Determined now, the old chief set out in the snows to
turn all his energy against the British.
" The Old Priest," said some of the Indians, " Tam
maha talks too much ! "
CLARK GUARDS THE FRONTIER 367
All along the Missouri, from St. Louis to the Mandans,
Lisa held councils with the Indians with wonderful suc
cess. But the Mississippi tribes, nearer to Canada, were
for the most part won over to Great Britain.
In other directions Governor Clark sent out for reports
from the tribes. The answer was appalling. As if all
were at war, a cordon of foes stretched from the St.
Lawrence to the Arkansas and Alabama.
Even Black Partridge, — at the Fort Dearborn mas
sacre he had snatched Mrs. Helm from the tomahawk and
held her in the lake to save her life. Late that night at
an Indian camp a friendly squaw-mother dressed her
wounds. Black Partridge loved that girl.
" Lieutenant Helm is a prisoner among the Indians,"
said agent Forsythe at Peoria. " Here are presents, Black
Partridge. Go ransom him. Here is a written order on
General Clark for one hundred dollars when you bring
him to the Red Head Chief."
Black Partridge rode to the Kankakee village and
spread out his presents. " And you shall have one hun-
tret tollars when you bring him to te Red Head Chief."
" Not enough ! Not enough ! " cried the Indians.
" Here, then, take my pony, my rifle, my ring," said
the Partridge, unhooking the hoop of gold from his nose.
The bargain was made. The man was ransomed, and
mounted on ponies all started for St. Louis. Lieutenant
Helm was saved.
Late at night, tired and hungry, the rain falling in
torrents, without pony or gun, Black Partridge arrived
at his village on Peoria Lake. His village ? It was gone.
Black embers smouldered there.
Wrapped in his blanket, Black Partridge sat on the
ground to await the revelation 'of dawn. Wolves howled
a mournful wail in his superstitious ear. Day dawned.
There lay the carnage of slaughter, — his daughter, his
grandchild, his neighbours, dead. The rangers had burnt
his town.
Breathing vengeance, " I will go on the war path,"
said Black Partridge, the Pottawattamie.
Two hundred warriors went from the wigwams of
368 THE CONQUEST
Illinois under Black Partridge, Shequenebec sent a hun
dred from his stronghold at the head of Peoria Lake,
Mittitass led a hundred from his village at the portage on
the Riviere des Plaines. Painted black they came, invet
erate since Tippecanoe.
" Look out for squalls," wrote John O'Fallon from
St. Louis to his mother at Louisville. " An express ar
rived from Fort Madison yesterday informing that the
sentinels had been obliged to fire upon the Indians almost
every night to keep them at their distance. Indians are
discovered some nights within several feet of the pickets."
Black Hawk was there. Very angry was Black Hawk
at the building of Fort Madison at the foot of Des Moines
rapids.
While Lewis and Clark were gone in 1804, William
Henry Harrison, directed by Jefferson, made a treaty
with the Sacs and Foxes by which they gave up fifty mil
lions of acres. Gratiot, Vigo, the Chouteaus, and officers
of the state and army, Quasquama and four other chiefs,
attached their names to that treaty in the presence of
Major Stoddard.
" I deny its validity ! " cried Black Hawk. " I never
gave up my land."
Now Black Hawk was plotting and planning and at
tacking Fort Madison, until early in September a panting
express arrived at St. Louis.
" Fort Madison is burned, Your Excellency."
" How did it happen? " inquired the Governor.
" Besieged until the garrison was reduced to potatoes
alone, we decided to evacuate. Digging a tunnel from the
southeast blockhouse to the river, boats were made ready.
Slipping out at night, crowding through the tunnel on
hands and knees, our last "man set fire to Fort Madison.
Like tinder the stockade blazed, kissing the heavens.
Indians leaped and yelled with tomahawks, expecting our
exit. At their backs, under cover of darkness, we escaped
down the Mississippi."
THE STORY OF A SWORD 369
XII
THE STORY OF A SWORD
HOW me what kind of country we have to march
rough," said the British General to Tecumseh,
ter Detroit had fallen.
Taking a roll of elm-bark Tecumseh drew his scalping
knife and etched upon it the rivers, hills, and woods he
knew so well. And the march began, — to be checked
at Fort Stephenson by a boy of twenty-one.
It was the dream and hope of the British Fur Com
panies to extend their territory as far within the Ameri
can border as possible. The whole War of 1812 was a
traders' war. Commerce, commerce, for which the world
is battling still, was the motive power on land and sea.
At the Lakes now, the British fur traders waved their
flags again above the ramparts of Detroit. " We must
hold this post, — its loss too seriously deranges our
plans."
Smouldering, the old Revolutionary fires had burst
anew. Did George III. still hope to conquer America?
"Hull surrendered?" America groaned at the stain,
the stigma, the national disgrace! In a day regiments
leaped to fill the breach. " Detroit must be re-taken ! "
Along the Lakes battle succeeded battle in swift suc
cession.
At Louisville two mothers, Lucy and Fanny, were
anxious for their boys. Both George Croghan and John
O'Fallon had been with Harrison at Tippecanoe. Both
had been promoted. Then came the call for swords.
" Get me a sword in Philadelphia," wrote O'Fallon to
his mother.
" Send me a sword to Cincinnati," begged Croghan.
Sitting under the trees at Locust Grove the sisters
were discussing the fall of Detroit. Fanny had John
O'Fallon' s letter announcing the burning of Fort Madi-
24
370 THE CONQUEST
son. Lucy was devouring the last impatient scrawl from
her fiery, ambitious son, George Croghan, now caged in
an obscure fort on Sandusky River near Lake Erie.
" The General little knows me," wrote Croghan. " To
assist his cause, to promote in any way his welfare, I
would bravely sacrifice my best and fondest hopes. I am
resolved on quitting the army as soon as I am relieved of
the command of this post."
Scarcely had the two mothers finished reading when a
shout rang through the streets of Louisville.
" Hurrah for Croghan ! Croghan ! Croghan ! "
" Why, what is the matter? "
Pale with anxiety Lucy ran to the gate. The whole
street was filled with people coming that way. In a few
hurried words she heard the story from several lips at
once.
" Why, you see, Madam, General Harrison was afraid
Tecumseh would make a flank attack on Fort Stephenson,
in charge of George Croghan, and so ordered him to
abandon and burn it. But no, — he sent the General
word, ' We are determined to hold this place, and by
heaven we will ! '
" That night George hastily cut a ditch and raised a
stockade. Then along came Proctor and Tecumseh with
a thousand British and Indians, and summoned him to
surrender.
" The boy had only one hundred and sixty inexperi
enced men and a single six-pounder, but he sent back
answer : ' The fort will be defended to the last extremity.
No force, however great, can induce us to surrender. We
are resolved to hold this post or bury ourselves in its
ruins.' '
Tears ran down Lucy's cheeks as she listened. — she
caught at the gate to keep from falling. Before her
arose the picture of that son with red hair flying, and
fine thin face like a blooded warhorse, — she knew that
look.
" Again Proctor sent his flag demanding surrender to
avoid a terrible massacre.
" ' When this fort is taken there will be none to mas-
THE STORY OF A SWORD 371
sacre,' answered the boy, ' for it will not be given up
while a man is left to resist ! '
" The enemy advanced, and when close at hand, Cro-
ghan unmasked his solitary cannon and swept them down.
Again Proctor advanced, and again the rifle of every
man and the masked cannon met them. Falling back,
Proctor and Tecumseh retreated, abandoning a boatload
of military stores on the bank."
" Hurrah for Croghan ! Croghan ! Croghan ! " again
rang down the streets of Louisville. The bells rang out
a peal as the Stars and Stripes ran up the flag-staff.
" The little game cock, he shall have my sword," said
George Rogers Clark, living again his own great days.
And with that sword there was a story.
When Tippecanoe was won and the world was ring
ing with " Harrison!" men recalled another hero who
" with no provisions, no munitions, no cannon, no shoes,
almost without an army," had held these same redmen
at bay.
"And does he yet live?"
" He lives, an exile and a hermit on a Point of Rock
on the Indiana shore above the Falls of the Ohio."
" Has he no recognition? "
Men whispered the story of the sword.
When John Rogers went back from victorious Vin-
cennes with Hamilton a prisoner-of-war, the grateful
Virginian Assembly voted George Rogers Clark a sword.
" And you, Captain Rogers, may present it."
The sword was ready, time passed, difficulties multi
plied. Clark presented his bill to the Virginia Legisla
ture. To his amazement and mortification the House of
Delegates refused to allow his claim.
Clark went home, sold his bounty lands, and ruined
himself to pay for the bread and meat of his army.
And then it was rumoured, " To-day a sword will be
presented to George Rogers Clark."
All the countryside gathered, pioneers and veterans,
with the civic and military display of that rude age to see
their hero honoured. The commissioner for Virginia
appeared, and in formal and complimentary address de-
372 THE CONQUEST
livered the sword. The General received it; then draw
ing the long blade from its scabbard, plunged it into the
earth and broke it off at the hilt. Turning to the com
missioner, he said,
" Captain Rogers, return to your State and tell her
for me first to be just before she is generous."
For years those old veterans had related to their chil
dren and grandchildren the story of that tragic day when
Clark, the hero, broke the sword Virginia gave him.
But a new time had come and new appreciation. While
the smoke of Tippecanoe was rolling away a member of
the Virginia Legislature related anew the story of that
earlier Vincennes and of the sword that Clark, " with
haughty sense of wounded pride and feeling had broken
and cast away." With unanimous voice Virginia voted
a new sword and the half-pay of a colonel for the re
mainder of his life.
The commissioners found the old hero partially para
lysed. Lucy had gone to him at the Point of Rock.
" Brother, you are failing, you need care, I will look
after you," and tenderly she bore him to her home at
Locust Grove, where now, all day long, in his invalid
chair, George Rogers Clark studied the long reach of
the blue Ohio or followed Napoleon and the boys of
1812.
Nothing had touched him like this deed of his nephew,
— " Yes, yes, he shall have my sword ! "
The next morning after the battle General Harrison
wrote to the Secretary of War : " I am sorry I cannot
submit to you Major Croghan's official report. He was
to have sent it to me this morning, but I have just heard
that he was so much exhausted by thirty-six hours of
constant exertion as to be unable to make it. It will not
be among the least of General Proctor's mortifications to
find that he has been baffled by a youth who has just
passed his twenty-first year. He is, however, a hero
worthy of his gallant uncle, General George Rogers
Clark"
The cannon, " Old Betsy," stands yet in Fort Stephen-
son at Fremont, Ohio, where every passing year they
THE STORY OF A SWORD 373
celebrate the victory of that second day of August, 1813,
— the first check to the British advance in the War of
1812.
A few days later, Perry's victory on Lake Erie opened
the road to Canada and Detroit was re-taken.
" Britannia, Columbia, both had set their heels upon
Detroit, and young Columbia threw Britannia back across
the Lakes," says the chronicler.
Then followed the battle of the Thames and the
death of Tecumseh. A Canadian historian says, " But
for Tecumseh, it is probable we should not now have a
Canada."
What if he had won Rebecca? Would Canada now
be a peaceful sister of the States ?
Tecumseh fought with the fur traders, — their inter
ests were his, — to keep the land a wild, a game preserve
for wild beasts and wilder men. Civilisation had no part
or place in Tecumseh' s plan.
With the medal of George III. upon his breast, Tecum
seh fell, on Canadian soil, battle-axe in hand, hero and
patriot of his race, the last of the great Shawnees. Te
cumseh' s belt and shot pouch were sent to Jefferson and
hung on the walls of Monticello. Tecumseh' s son passed
with his people beyond the Mississippi.
From his invalid chair at Locust Grove George Rogers
Clark was writing to his brother :
" Your embarkation from St. Louis on your late hazard
ous expedition [to Prairie du Chien] was a considerable
source of anxiety to your friends and relatives. They were
pleased to hear of your safe return. . . .
"As to Napoleon . . . the news of his having abdicated
the throne — "
"Napoleon abdicated?" Governor Clark scarce fin
ished the letter. Having crushed him, what armies might
not England hurl hitherward! New danger menaced
America.
" Napoleon abdicated ! " New Orleans wept.
Then followed the word, " England is sailing into the
Gulf, — Sir Edward Pakenham, brother-in-law of the
374 THE CONQUEST
Duke of Wellington, with a part of Wellington's victori
ous army, fifty ships, a thousand guns and twenty thou
sand men! "
Never had Great Britain lost sight of the Mississippi.
This was a part of the fleet that burned Washington and
had driven Dolly Madison and the President into igno
minious flight.
Terrified, New Orleans, the beautiful Creole maiden,
beset in her orange bower, flung out her arms appealing
to the West ! And that West answered, " Never, while
the Mississippi rolls to the Gulf, will we leave you un
protected." And out of that West came Andrew Jack
son and tall Tennesseeans, Kentuckians, Mississippians,
in coonskin caps and leathern hunting shirts, to seal for
ever our right to Louisiana.
The hottest part of the battle was fought at Chal-
mette, above the grave of the Fighting Parson. Im
mortal Eighth of January, 1815! Discontented Creoles
of 1806 proved loyal Americans, vindicating their right
to honour.
Napoleon laughed when he heard it at Elba, — "I
told them I had given England a rival that one day would
humble her pride."
Even the Ursuline nuns greeted their deliverers with
joy, and the dim old cloistered halls were thrown open
for a hospital.
" I expect at this moment," said Lord Castlereagh
in Europe, " that most of the large seaport towns of
America are laid in ashes, that we are in possession
of New Orleans, and have command of all the rivers
of the Mississippi Valley and the Lakes."
But he counted without our ships at sea. The War of
1812 was fought upon the ocean, " the golden age of
naval fighting." Bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh,
under the " Gridiron Flag," tars of the American Revo
lution, sailor boys who under impressment had fought
at Trafalgar, led in a splendid spectacular drama, the
like of which England or the world had never seen. She
had trained up her own child. A thousand sail had
Britain — America a dozen sloops and frigates alto-
THE STORY OF A SWORD 375
gether, — but the little tubs had learned from their
mother.
" The territory between the Lakes and the Ohio shall
be for ever set apart as an Indian territory," said Eng
land at the opening of the peace negotiations. " The
United States shall remove her armed vessels from
the lakes and give England the right of navigating the
Mississippi."
Clay, Gallatin, Adams packed up their grips prepara
tory to starting home, when England bethought herself
and came to better terms.
The next year America passed a law excluding for
eigners from our trade, and the British fur traders re
luctantly crossed the border. But they held Oregon by
" Joint Occupation."
" All posts captured by either power shall be restored,"
said the treaty. " There shall be joint occupancy of the
Oregon Country for ten years."
" A great mistake ! a great mistake ! " cried out Thomas
Hart Benton, a young lawyer who had settled in St.
Louis. " In ten years that little nest egg of * Joint Occu
pation ' will hatch out a lively fighting chicken."
Benton was a Western man to the core, — he felt a
responsibility for all that sunset country. And why
should he not? Missouri and Oregon touched borders
on the summit of the Rockies. Were they not next-door
neighbours, hobnobbing over the fence as it were ? Every
day at Governor Clark's at St. Louis, he and Benton dis
cussed that Oregon " Joint Occupancy " clause.
" As if two nations ever peacefully occupied the same
territory! I tell you it is a physical impossibility," ex
claimed Benton, jamming down his wine-glass with a
crash.
The War of 1812, — how Astor hated it! " But for
that war," he used to say, " I should have been the richest
man that ever lived." As it was, the British fur com
panies came in and gained a foothold from which they
were not ousted until American ox-teams crossed the
plains and American frontiersmen took the country. A
million a year England trapped from Oregon waters.
376 THE CONQUEST
XIII
PORTAGE DBS SIOUX
ME and make treaties of friendship."
As his brother had done at the close of the
Revolution, so now William Clark sent to the
tribes to make peace after the War of 1812.
" No person ought to be lazy to be de bearer of such
good news," said old Antoine Le Claire, the interpreter.
Up the rivers and toward the Lakes, runners carried
the word of the Red Head Chief, " Come, come to St.
Louis!"
To the clay huts of the sable Pawnees of the Platte,
to the reed wigwams of the giant Osages, to the painted
lodges of the Omahas, and to the bark tents of the Chip-
pewas, went " peace talks " and gifts and invitations.
" De lowas are haughty an' insolent!" St. Vrain,
first back, laid their answer on the table.
" De Kickapoo are glad of de peace, but de Sauk an'
Winnebago insist on war! De Sauk haf murdered deir
messenger ! "
That was Black Hawk. With a war party from
Prairie du Chien he was met by the news of peace.
" Peace? " Black Hawk wept when he heard it. He
had been at the battle of the Thames.
" De messenger to de Sioux are held at Rock River ! "
One by one came runners into the Council Hall, and,
cap in hand, stood waiting. Outside, their horses pawed
on the Rue, their boats were tied at the river.
" Some one must pass Rock River, to the Sioux, Chip-
pewas, and Menomonees," said Clark. Not an interpreter
stirred.
" We dare not go into dose hostile countrie," said
Antoine Le Claire, spokesman for the rest.
" What ? With an armed boat ? "
The silence was painful as the Governor looked over
the council room.
PORTAGE DES SIOUX 377
" I will go."
Every eye was turned toward the speaker, James Ken-
nerly, the Governor's private secretary, the cousin of
Julia and brother of Harriet of Fincastle. The same
spirit was there that led a whole generation of his people
to perish in the Revolution. His father had been dragged
from the field of Cowpens wrapped in the flag he had
rescued.
At the risk of his life, when no one else would venture,
the faithful secretary went up the Mississippi to bring in
the absent tribes. Black-eyed Elise, the daughter of Dr.
Saugrain, wept all night to think of it. Governor Clark
himself had introduced Elise to his secretary. How she
counted the days !
" The Chippewas would have murdered me but for the
timely arrival of the Sioux," said Kennedy, on his safe
return with the band of Rising Moose.
" The Red Coats are gone! " said Rising Moose. " I
rush in. I put out the fire. I save the fort."
Without waiting for troops from St. Louis, forty-eight
hours after the news of peace the British had evacuated
Prairie du Chien. A day or two later they returned, took
the cannon, and set fire to the fort with the American flag
flying.
Into the burning fort went Rising Moose, secured the
flag and an American medal, and brought them down to
St. Louis.
While interpreters were speeding by horse and boat
over half a hundred trails, Manuel Lisa, sleepless warden
of the plains, arrived with forty-three chiefs and head
men of the Missouri Sioux. Wild Indians who never
before had tasted bread, brought down in barges camped
on the margin of the Mississippi, the great council chiefs
of their tribes, moody, unjoyous, from the Stony Moun
tains. For weeks other deputations followed, to the num
ber of two thousand, to make treaties and settle troubles
arising out of the War of 1812.
Whether even yet a council could be held was a query
in Governor Clark's mind. Across the neighbouring
Mississippi, Sacs, Foxes, lowas were raiding still, cap-
378 THE CONQUEST
turing horses and attacking people. That was Black
Hawk.
The eyes of the Missouri Sioux flashed. " Let us go
and fight those Sacs and lowas. They shall trouble us
no more." With difficulty were they held to the council.
There was a steady and unalterable gloom of counte
nance, a melancholy, sullen musing among the gathered
tribes, as they camped on the council ground at Portage
des Sioux on the neck of land between the two rivers at
St. Charles. Over this neck crossed Sioux war parties
in times past, avoiding a long detour, bringing home their
scalps.
Resplendent with oriental colour were the bluffs and
the prairies. Chiefs and warriors had brought their
squaws and children, — Sioux from the Lakes and the
high points of the Mississippi in canoes of white birch,
light and bounding as cork upon the water ; Sioux of the
Missouri in clumsy pirogues ; Mandans in skin coracles,
barges, dug-outs, and cinnamon-brown fleets of last year's
bark.
The panorama of forest and prairie was there, — Sioux
of the Leaf, Sioux of the Broad Leaf, and Sioux Who
Shoot in the Pine Tops, in hoods of feathers, Chinese
featured Sioux, of smooth skins and Roman noses, the
ideal Indian stalking to and fro with forehead banded
in green and scarlet and eagle plumes.
For Wabasha, Little Crow, and Red Wing had come,
great sachems of the Sioux nation. The British officers
at Drummond's Island in Lake Huron had sent for Little
Crow and Wabasha.
" I would thank you in the name of George III. for
your services in the war."
" My father," said Wabasha, " what is this I see on the
floor before me ? A few knives and blankets ! Is this all
you promised at the beginning of the war? Where are
those promises you made ? You told us you would never
let fall the hatchet until the Americans were driven be
yond the mountains. Will these presents pay for the
men we lost? I have always been able to make a living
and can do so still."
PORTAGE DES SIOUX 379
" After we have fought for you," cried Little Crow,
" endured many hardships, lost some of our people, and
awakened the vengeance of our powerful neighbours, you
make a peace and leave us to obtain such terms as we can !
You no longer need us and offer these goods for having
deserted us. We will not take them."
Kicking the presents contemptuously with his foot,
Little Crow turned away.
" Arise, let us go down to the Red Head Parshasha ! "
In handsome bark canoes propelled by sails alone, the
Sioux came down to St. Louis.
Walking among their elliptical tents, lounging on pan
ther skins at their wigwam doors, waited the redmen,
watching, lynx-eyed, losing nothing of the scene before
them. Beaded buckskin glittered in the sun, tiny bells
tinkled from elbow to ankle, and sashes outrivalled
Louisiana sunsets.
Half-naked Osages with helmet-crests and eagle-quills,
full-dressed in breech-clouts and leggings fringed with
scalp-locks, the tallest men in North America, from their
warm south hills, mingled with Pottawattamies of the
Illinois, makers of fire, Shawnees with vermilion around
their eyes, Sacs, of the red badge, and Foxes, adroitest
of thieves, all drumming on their tambourines. Winne-
bagoes, fish eaters, had left their nets on the northern
lakes, Omahas their gardens on the Platte, and Ojibway
arrow makers sat chipping, chipping as the curious
crowds walked by. For all the neighbouring country
had gathered to view the Indian camp of 1815.
Oblivious, contemptuous perhaps, of staring crowds,
the industrious women skinned and roasted dogs on sticks,
the warriors gambled with one another, staking their
tents, skins, rifles, dogs, and squaws. Here and there
sachems were mending rifles, princesses carrying water,
children playing ball.
About the first of July, Governor Clark of Missouri,
Governor Ninian Edwards of Illinois, and Auguste Chou-
teau of St. Louis, opened the council, — one of the great
est ever held in the Mississippi Valley.
Auguste Chouteau; prime vizier of all the old Spanish
380 THE CONQUEST
commandants, now naturally slipped into the same office
with Clark, and Governor Edwards of Illinois, who as a
father had guarded the frontier against the wiles of Te-
cumseh, and had risked his entire fortune to arm the
militia, — all in queues, high collared coats, and ruffled
shirts, faced each other and the chiefs.
In front of their neatly arranged tents sat the tawny
warriors in imposing array, with dignified attention to the
interpretation of each sentence.
:' The long and bloody war is over. The British have
gone back over the Big Water," said Governor Clark,
" and now we have sent for you, my brothers, to conclude
a treaty of peace."
" Heigh ! " cried all the Indians in deep-toned reso
nance that rolled like a Greek chorus to the bluffs beyond.
The sky smiled down as on the old Areopagus, the leaves
of the forest rustled, the river swept laughing by.
" Every injury or act of hostility by one or either
of us against the other, shall be mutually forgiven and
forgot."
"Heigh! heigh! heig-h!"
" There shall be perpetual peace and friendship between
us."
"Heigh!"
"You will acknowledge yourselves under the protection
of the United States, and of no other nation, power, or
sovereign whatsoever."
" Heigh ! "
A Teton Sioux who had come down with Lisa strug
gled to his feet, approached, shook hands with the com
missioners, then retreated and fixed his keen eye on the
Governor. His voice rang clear over the assembled
thousands, —
" We have come down expressly to notify you, our
father, that we will assist in chastising those nations hos
tile to our government."
The two factions faced each other. Scowls of light
ning hate flashed over the council. But the wisdom and
tact of Clark were equal to regiments. " The fighting has
ended," he said. " The peace has come."
PORTAGE DES SIOUX 381
" Heigh ! " shouted all the Indians. " Heig-h ! "
Partisan was there, the Teton chief, who with Black
Buffalo had made an attempt to capture Clark on the way
to the Pacific. And now Partisan was bristling to fight
for Clark.
Wabasha arose, like a figure out of one of Catlin's
pictures, in a chief's costume, with bullock horns and
eagle feathers. There was a stir. With a profile like the
great Conde, followed by his pipe bearers with much cere
mony, the hereditary chief from the Falls of St. Anthony
walked up to Governor Clark.
" I shake hands," he said.
Every neck was craned. When before had Wabasha
stood? In their northern councils he spoke sitting. " I
am called upon to stand only in the presence of my Great
Father at Washington or Governor Clark at St. Louis.
But I am not a warrior," said Wabasha. " My people
can prosper only at peace with one another and the whites.
Against my advice some of my young men went into the
war."
The fiery eyes of Little Crow flashed, the aquiline curve
of his nose lifted, like the beak of an eagle. He had come
down from his bark-covered cabin near St. Paul.
" I am a war chief! " said Little Crow. " But I am
willing to conclude a peace."
"I alone was an American," said Rising Moose, "when
all my people fought with the British." All the rest of
his life Tammaha, Rising Moose, wore a tall silk hat and
carried Governor Clark's commission in his bosom.
Big Elk, the Omaha, successor of Blackbird, spoke with
action energetic and graceful.
" Last Winter when you sent your word by Captain
Manuel Lisa, in the night one of the whites wanted my
young men to rise. He told them if they wanted good
presents, to cross to the British. This man was Baptiste
Dorion. When I was at the Pawnees I wanted to bring
some of them down, but the whites who live among them
told them not to go, that no good came from the Amer
icans, that good only came from the British. I have told
Captain Manuel to keep those men away from us. Take
382 THE CONQUEST
care of the Sioux. Take care. They will fly from under
your wing."
* Sacs who had been hostile engaged in the debate.
Noble looking chiefs, with blanket thrown around the
body in graceful folds, the right arm, muscular and
brawny, bare to the shoulder, spoke as Cato might have
spoken to the Roman Senate.
" My father, it is the request of my people to keep the
British traders among us." As he went on eloquently
enumerating their advantages in pleading tone and voice
and glance and gesture, — hah ! the wild rhetoric of the
savage! how it thrilled the assembled concourse of In
dians and Americans !
Clark shook his head. " It cannot be. We can admin
ister law, order, and justice ourselves. Come to us for
goods, — the British traders belong beyond the border."
The Indians gave a grunt of anger.
" It has been promised already," cried another chief.
"The Americans have double tongues!"
" Heigh ! " ran among the Indians. Many a one
touched his tongue and held up two fingers, " You lie ! "
With stern and awful look Clark immediately dismissed
the council. The astonished chiefs covered their mouths
with their hands as they saw the commissioners turn their
backs to go out.
That afternoon a detachment of United States artillery
arrived and camped in full view of the Indians. They
had been ordered to the Sac country. Colonel Dodge's
regiment of dragoons, each company of a solid colour,
blacks and bays, whites, sorrels, grays and creams, went
through the manoeuvres of battle, charge and repulse, in
splendid precision. It was enough. The Sac chiefs,
cowed, requested the renewal of the council.
" My father," observed the offending chief of the day
before, " you misunderstood me. I only meant to say
we have always understood from our fathers that the
Americans used two languages, the French and the
English ! "
Clark smiled and the council proceeded.
But by night, July u, the Sacs, Foxes, and Kickapoos
PORTAGE DES SIOUX 383
secretly left the council. At the same time came reports
of great commotion at Prairie du Chien where the north
ern tribes were divided by the British traders.
Head bent, linked arm in arm with Paul Louise, his
little interpreter, the giant Osage chief, White Hair, gave
strict attention. White Hair had been in St. Clair's de
feat, and in seeking to scalp a victim had grasped — his
wig ! This he ever after wore upon his own head, a crown
of white hair. He said, "I felt a fire within me, — it drove
me to the fight of St. Clair. His army scattered. I re
turned to my own people. But the fire still burned,
and I went over the mountains toward the western
sea."
Every morning the Osages set up their matutinal wail,
dolefully lamenting, weeping as if their hearts would
break.
"What is the matter?" inquired Governor Clark, riding
out in concern.
u We are mourning for our ancestors," answered the
chief, shedding copious tears and sobbing anew, for ages
the custom of his people.
" They are dead long ago, -—let them rest! " said the
Governor.
Brightening up, White Hair slipped on his wig and
followed him to the council.
Houseless now and impoverished Black Partridge and
his people clung to Colonel George Davenport as to a
father. Poor helpless Pottawattamies !
" Come with me," said Davenport, " I will take you to
St. Louis."
So down in a flotilla of canoes had come Davenport
with thirteen chiefs, all wreathed in turkey feathers, em
blems of the Pottawattamies. No more they narrated
their heroic exploits in fighting with Tecumseh.
Grave, morose, brooding over his wrongs, Black Par
tridge was seventy now, his long coarse unkempt hair
in matted clusters on his shoulders, but figure still erect
and firm. " I would be a friend to the whites," he said.
" I was compelled to go with my tribe." The silver me
dallion^ of George Washington was gone from his breast.
384 THE CONQUEST
Many and sad had been the vicissitudes since that day,
when, in a flood of tears, he had thrown it down at the
feet of the commander at Fort Dearborn. Tall, slim, with
a high forehead, large nose and piercing black eyes, with
hoops of gold in his ears, Black Partridge was a typical
savage, — asking for civilisation. But it rolled over him.
Here and there a missionary tarried to talk, but com
merce, commerce, the great civiliser, arose like a flood,
drowning the redmen.
" The settlements are crowding our border," Black
Partridge spoke for his people on their fairy lake, Peoria.
" And whom shall we call Father, the British at Maiden
or the Americans at St. Louis? Who shall relieve our
distresses? "
" Put it in your mind," said Auguste Chouteau, the
shrewd old French founder of St. Louis, " put it in your
mind, that when de British made peace with us, dey left
you in de middle of de prairie without a shade against
sun or rain. Left you in de middle of de prairie, a sight
to pity. We Americans have a large umbrella; keeps
off de sun and rain. You come under our umbrella."
And they did.
The Indian has a fine sense of justice. The situation
was evident. Abandoned by the British who had led
him into the war, he stood ready at last to return to the
friends on whom he was most dependent.
One by one the chiefs came forwrard and put their
mark to the treaty of peace and friendship. Clark
brought the peace pipes, — every neck was craned to scan
them.
Sioux pipes sometimes cost as much as forty horses, —
finely wrought pipes of variegated red and white from
the Minnesota quarries, Shoshone pipes of green, and
pipes of purple from Queen Charlottes, were sold for skins
and slaves, — but these, Clark's pipes of silver bowls and
decorated stems, these were worth a hundred horses!
Puffing its fragrant aroma, the fierce wild eye of the
savage softened. Twenty thousand dollars' worth of
goods was distributed in presents, flags, blankets, and
rifles, ornaments and clothing.
PORTAGE DES SIOUX 385
" Ah, ha ! Great Medicine ! " whispered the Indians
as the beautiful gifts came one by one into their hands.
" We need traders," said Red Wing, sliding his hand
along the soft nap of the blankets. " That made us go
into the war. Without traders we have to clothe ourselves
in grass and eat the earth."
" You shall have traders," answered Clark. " I shall
not let you travel five or six hundred miles to a British
post."
Every September thereafter he sent them up a few
presents to begin their fall hunting, and counselled his
agents to listen to their complaints and render them
justice.
" We must depend on policy rather than arms," said
the Governor. " For they are our children, the wards of
the nation."
The Indians were dined in St. Louis and entertained
with music and dancing. By their dignity, moderation,
and untiring forbearance, the Commissioners of Portage
des Sioux exemplified the paternal benevolence of the
Government.
At the end of the council Lisa started back with his
chiefs, on a three months' voyage to their northern home,
and on the last day of September Clark dismissed the rest.
Thus making history, the summer had stolen away.
All next summer and the next were spent in making
treaties, until at last there was peace along the border.
"Did you sign?" finally asked some one of Black
Hawk of the British band.
" I touched the goose quill," answered the haughty
chief.
So ended the War of 1812.
386 THE CONQUEST
XIV
"FOR OUR CHILDREN, OUR CHILDREN!"
AS soon as the Indian scare was silenced, all the
world seemed rushing to Missouri. Ferries ran
by day and night. Patriarchal planters of Vir
ginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia passed ever west in
long, unending caravans of flocks, servants, herds, into
the new land of the Louisianas. New Englanders and
Pennsylvanians, six, eight, and ten horses to a waggon,
and cattle with their hundred bells, tinkled through the
streets of St. Louis.
" Where are you going, now?" inquired the citizens.
' To Boone's Lick, to be sure."
" Go no further," said Clark, ever enthusiastic about
St. Louis. " Buy here. This will be the city."
" But ah ! " exclaimed the emigrant. " If land is so
good here what must Boone's Lick be! "
Perennial childhood of the human heart, ever looking
for Canaan just beyond !
The Frenchmen shrugged their shoulders at the strange
energy of these progressive " Bostonnais." It annoyed
them to have their land titles looked into. " A process !
a lawsuit ! " they clasped their hands in despair. But
ever the people of St. Louis put up their lands to a better
figure, and watched out of their little square lattices for
the coming of les Americains.
All the talk was of land, land, land ! The very wealth
of ancient estates lay unclaimed for the first heir to enter,
the gift of God.
In waggons, on foot and horseback, with packhorses,
handcarts, and wheelbarrows, with blankets on their
backs and children by the hand, the oppressed of the old
world fled across the new.
" Why do you go into the wilderness? "
" For my children, my children," answered the pioneer.
" FOR OUR CHILDREN, OUR CHILDREN ! " 387
More and more came people in a mighty flood, peas
ants, artisans, sons of the old crusaders, children of feudal
knights of chivalry and romance, descendants of the hardy
Norsemen who captured Europe five hundred years be
fore, scions of Europe's most titled names, thronging to
our West.
Frosts and crop failures in the Atlantic States and a
financial panic uprooted old Revolutionary centres. " A
better country, a better country!" was the watchword
of the mobile nation.
" Let 's go over to the Territory," said the soldiers of
1812. " Let us go to Arkansas, where corn can be had
for sixpence a bushel and pork for a penny a pound.
Two days' work in Texas is equal to the labour of a
week in the North." And on they pressed into No Man's
Land, a land of undeveloped orchards, maple syrup and
honey, fields of cotton and wool and corn.
Conestoga waggons crowded on the Alleghanies, teams
fell down precipices and perished, but the tide pushed
madly on. Colonies of hundreds were pouring into Mich
igan, Wisconsin, Illinois. New towns were named for
their founders, new counties, lakes, rivers, streams, and
hills, — the settlers wrote their names upon the geogra
phy of the nation.
In the midst of the war Daniel Boone had come down
to Clark at St. Louis.
" I have spoken to Henry Clay about your claim," said
the Governor. " He says Congress will do something
for you."
" Now Rebecca, thee shall hev a house ! "
That house, the joint product of Nathan, the Colonel,
and his slaves, was a work of years. Not far from the
old cabin by the spring it stood, convenient to the Judg
ment Tree. For Boone still held his court beneath the
spreading elm.
The stones were quarried and chiselled, two feet thick,
and laid so solidly that to-day the walls of the old Boone
mansion are as good as new. The plaster was mixed
and buried in the ground over winter to ripen. Roomy
and comfortable, two stories and an attic it was built,
388 THE CONQUEST
with double verandas and chimneys at either end, the
finest mansion on the border.
But in March Rebecca died. Boone buried her where
he could watch the mound.
The house was finished. The Colonel bought a coffin
and put it under the bed to be ready. Sometimes he tried
his coffin, to see how it would seem when he slept beside
Rebecca.
In December came the land, a thousand arpents in his
Spanish grant. " If I only cud hev told Rebecca/' sobbed
Daniel, kneeling at her grave. " She war a good woman,
and the faithful companion of all my wanderings."
In the Spring Boone sold his land, and set out for
Kentucky.
" Daniel Boone has come! Daniel Boone has come! "
Old hunters, Revolutionary heroes, came for miles to see
their leader who had opened Kentucky. There was a re
ception at Maysville. Parties were given in his honour
wherever he went. Once more he embraced his old
friend, Simon Kenton.
" How much do I owe ye ? " he said to one and another.
Whatever amount they named, that he paid, and de
parted. One day the dusty old hunter re-entered his son's
house on the Femme Osage with fifty cents in his pocket.
" Now I am ready and willing to die. I have paid all
my debts and nobody can say, ' Boone was a dishonest
man.' '
Then came the climax of his life.
" Nate, I am goin' to the Yellowstone."
While Clark was holding his peace treaties, Daniel
Boone, eighty-two years old, with a dozen others set
out in boats for the Upper Missouri.
Autumn came. Somewhere in the present Montana,
they threw up a winter camp and were besieged by In
dians. A heavy snow-storm drove the Indians off. In
early Spring, coming down the Missouri on the return,
again they were attacked by Indians and landed in a
thicket of the opposite shore. Under cover of a storm
in the night Boone ordered them into the boat, and
silently in the pelting rain they escaped.
" FOR OUR CHILDREN, OUR CHILDREN ! " 389
Boone himself brought the furs to St. Louis, and
went back with a bag full of money and a boat full of
emigrants.
Farther and farther into his district emigrants began
setting up their four-post sassafras bedsteads and scour
ing their pewter platters. Women walked thirty miles to
hear the first piano that came into the Boone settlement.
In the last year of the war Boone' s favourite grandson
was killed at Charette.
" The history of the settlement of the western country
is my history," said the old Colonel in his grief. " Two
darling sons, a grandson, and a brother have I lost by
savage hands, besides valuable horses and abundance of
cattle. Many sleepless nights have I spent, separated
from the society of men, an instrument ordained of God
to settle the wilderness."
' You must paint Daniel Boone," said Governor Clark
to Chester Harding, a young American artist fresh from
Paris in the summer of 1819. The Governor was
Harding' s first sitter. He invited the Indians into his
studio.
" Ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! " grunted the Osage chiefs, putting
their noses close and rubbing their fingers across the
Governor's portrait.
In June Harding set out up the Missouri to paint
Boone. In an old blockhouse of the War of 1812, he
found him lying on a bunk, roasting a strip of venison
wound around his ramrod, turning it before the fire.
"What? Paint my pictur' ?"
' Yes, on canvas. Make a portrait, you know."
The old man consented. With amazement the fron
tiersman saw the picture grow, — still more amazed, his
grandchildren watched the likeness of "granddad" grow
ing on the canvas.
Ruddy and fair, with silvered locks, always humming
a tune, he sat in his buckskin hunting-shirt trimmed with
otter's fur, and the knife in his belt he had carried on his
first expedition to Kentucky.
Every day now, in his leisure hours, the old pioneer
was busily scraping with a piece of glass. " Making a
390 THE CONQUEST
powder-horn," he said. " Goin' to hunt on the Fork in
the Fall."
A hundred miles up the Kansas he had often set his
traps, but Boone's legs were getting shaky, his eyes were
growing dim. Every day now he tried his coffin, — it
was shining and polished and fair, of the wood he loved
best, the cherry. People came for miles to look at Boone's
coffin.
XV
TOO GOOD TO THE INDIANS
MANUEL LISA had out-distanced all his com
petitors in the fur trade. But the voice of envy
whispered, " Manuel must cheat the Government,
and Manuel must cheat the Indians, otherwise Manuel
could not bring down every summer so many boats loaded
with rich furs."
" Good ! " exclaimed Lisa to Governor Clark, when
the fleets were tying up at St. Louis in 1817. " My ac
counts with the Government will show whether I receive
anything out of which to cheat it."
" I have not blamed you, Manuel," explained the Gov
ernor. " On the contrary I have conveyed to the Govern
ment my high appreciation of your very great services in
quieting the Indians of the Missouri. It is not necessary
to worry yourself with the talk of babblers who do not
understand."
" Cheat the Indians ! " The Spaniard stamped the
floor. " The respect and friendship which they have for
me, the security of my possessions in the heart of their
country, respond to this charge, and declare with voices
louder than the tongues of men that it cannot be true.
" * But Manuel gets so much rich fur.' ' Lisa ground
out the words with scorn.
" Well, I will explain how I get it. First I put into
my operations great activity, — I go a great distance,
TOO GOOD TO THE INDIANS 391
while some are considering whether they will start to
day or to-morrow. I impose upon myself great priva
tions, — ten months in a year I am buried in the forest,
at a vast distance from my own house. I appear as the
benefactor, and not as the pillager, of the Indians. I
carried among them the seed of the large pumpkin, from
which I have seen in their possession the fruit weighing
one hundred and sixty pounds. Also the large bean, the
potato, the turnip, and these vegetables now make a great
part of their subsistence. This year I have promised to
carry the plough. Besides, my blacksmiths work inces
santly for them, charging nothing. I lend them traps,
only demanding preference in their trade. My estab
lishments are the refuge of the weak and of the old men
no longer able to follow their lodges; and by these
means I have acquired the confidence and friendship of
these nations, and the consequent choice of their trade.
These things I have done, and I propose to do more."
In short, Manuel Lisa laid down his commission as
sub-agent to embark yet more deeply in the fur trade.
" What is that noise at the river? "
Ten thousand shrieking eagles and puffs of smoke
arose from the yellow-brown Mississippi below. The
entire population of St. Louis was flocking to the river
brink to greet the General Pike, the first steamboat
that ever came up to St. Louis. People rushed to the
landing but the Indians drew back in terror lest the
monster should climb the bank and pursue them inland.
Pell-mell into Clark's Council House they tumbled im
ploring protection.
Never had St. Louis appeared so beautiful as when
Julia and the children came into their new home in 1819.
Clark, the Governor, had built a mansion, one of the
finest in St. Louis. Wide verandas gave a view of the
river, gardens of fruit and flowers bloomed.
But Julia was ill.
" Take her back to the Virginia mountains," said Dr.
Farrar, the family physician. " St. Louis heats are too
much for her."
In dress suit, silk hat, and sword cane, Farrar was a
392 THE CONQUEST
notable figure in old St. Louis, riding night and day as
far out as Boone's Lick, establishing a reputation that
remains proverbial yet. He had married Anne Thruston,
the daughter of Fanny.
" Let her try a trip on the new steamboat/' said the
Doctor.
So after her picture was painted by Chester Harding
in that Spring of 1819, Clark and Julia and the little boys,
Meriwether Lewis, William Preston, and George Rogers
Hancock, set out for New Orleans in the " new-fangled
steamboat."
It was a long and dangerous trip; the river was en
cumbered with snags ; every night they tied up to a tree.
" Travel by night? Could n't think of it! We 'd be
aground before morning! " said the Captain.
Around by sea the Governor and his wife sailed by
ship to Washington.
" I will join you at the Sweet Springs," said President
Monroe to the Governor and his wife in Washington.
' The Sweet Springs cure all my ills," said Dolly Madi
son at Montpelier.
" She will recover at the Sweet Springs," said Jeffer
son at Monticello.
But at the Sweet Springs Julia grew so ill they had to
carry her on a bed to Fotheringay.
" Miss Judy done come home sick ! " The servants
wept.
Something of a physician himself, Clark began the use
of fumes of tar through a tube, and to the surprise of all
" Miss Judy " rallied again.
" As soon as I can leave her in safety I shall return to
St. Louis," wrote the Governor to friends at the Missouri
capital.
" If I should die," said Julia sweetly one day, " and
you ever think of marrying again, consider my cousin
Harriet."
" Ah, but you will be well, my darling, when Spring
comes."
And she was better in the Spring, thinking of the new
house at St. Louis. Julia was a very neat and careful
TOO GOOD TO THE INDIANS 393
housekeeper. Everything- was kept under lock and key,
she directed the servants herself, and was the light of a
houseful of company. For the Governor's house was
the centre of hospitality, — never a noted man came that
way, but, " I must pay my respects to the Governor."
Savants from over the sea came to look at his Indian
museum. General Clark had made the greatest collec
tion in the world, and had become an authority on In
dian archaeology.
Governor Clark, too, was worried about affairs in St.
Louis. Missouri was just coming in as a State, and a
new executive must be elected under the Constitution.
" Go," said Julia, " I shall be recovered soon now."
Indeed, deceptive roses were blooming in her cheeks.
With many regrets and promises of a speedy return,
Clark hastened back to his official duties. He found Mis
souri in the midst of a heated campaign, coming in as a
State and electing a Governor. For seven years he had
held the territorial office with honour.
But a new candidate was before the people.
" Governor Clark is too good to the Indians ! " That
was the chief argument of the opposing faction. " He
looks after their interests to the disadvantage of the
whites."
" To the disadvantage of the whites? How can that
be? " inquired his friends. " Did he not in the late war
deal severely with the hostile tribes? And what do you
say of the Osage lands? When hostilities began Presi
dent Madison ordered the settlers out of the Boone's
Lick country as invaders of Indian lands. What did
the Governor do? He remonstrated, he delayed the exe
cution of those orders until they were rescinded, and the
settlers were allowed to remain."
"How could he do that?"
" How ? Why, he simply told the Indians those lands
were included in the Osage treaty of 1808. He made
that treaty, and he knew. No Indian objected. They
trusted Clark; his explanation was sufficient. And his
maps proved it."
" Too good to the Indians ! Too good to the In-
394 THE CONQUEST
dians!" What Governor before ever lost his head on
such a charge?
At that moment, flying down the Ohio, came a swift
messenger, — " Mrs. Clark is dead at Fotheringay."
With the shock upon him, General Clark sent a card
to the papers, notifying his fellow citizens of his loss,
and of his necessary absence until the election was over.
And with mingled dignity and sorrow he went back to
Fotheringay to bury the beloved dead.
Granny Molly, " Black Granny," who had laced " Miss
Judy's " shoes and tied up her curls with a ribbon in the
old Philadelphia days, never left her beloved mistress.
A few days before " Miss Judy " went away, little
Meriwether Lewis, then eleven years of age, came to
her bedside with his curly hair dishevelled and his broad
shirt collar tumbled.
" Aunt Molly," said the mother, " watch my boy and
keep him neat. He is so beautiful, Granny ! "
After her body was placed on two of the parlour chairs,
Granny Molly noticed a little dust on the waxed floor.
" Miss Judy would be 'stressed if she could see it."
Away she ran, brought a mop, and had it all right by the
time the coffin came.
Down on her kn^es scrubbing, scrubbing for the last
time the floor for " Miss Judy," tears trickled down the
ebony cheeks.
" Po', po' Miss Judy. You 's done gwine wid de
angels."
They laid her in the family tomb, overlooking the
green valley of the Roanoke. Two weeks after her
death, Colonel Hancock himself also succumbed.
To a double funeral the Governor came back. High
on the hillside they laid them, in a mausoleum excavated
out of the solid rock.
" De Cunnel, he done watch us out ob dat iron window
up dah," said the darkies. "He sits up dah in a stone
chair so he can look down de valley and see his slaves at
deir work."
To this day the superstitious darkies will not pass his
tomb.
TOO GOOD TO THE INDIANS 395
On his way to Washington, Governor Clark stopped
again at Monticello.
" Ah, the joyous activity of my grandfather ! " ex
claimed Thomas Jefferson Randolph. " He mounts his
horse early in the morning, canters down the mountain
and across country to the site of the university. All day
long he assists at the work. He has planned it, engaged
workmen, selected timber, bought bricks. He has sent
to Italy for carvers of stone."
Out of those students flocking to consult Jefferson had
grown the University of Virginia. Books and professors
were brought from England, and the institution opened
in 1825.
Martha Jefferson's husband, Thomas Mann Randolph,
was Governor of Virginia now, but the sage of Monti-
cello paid little attention. All his talk was of schools, —
schools and colleges for Virginia.
"Slavery in Missouri?" Clark broached the discus
sion that was raging at the West.
Instantly the sage of Monticello was attentive.
" This momentous question, like a firebell in the night,
awakened and filled me with terror. It is the knell of
the Union. Since Bunker Hill we have never had so omi
nous a .question." He who had said, " Pensacola and
Florida will come in good time," and, " I have ever
looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which
could be made to our system of States," had corre
sponded with the Spanish minister concerning a canal
through the isthmus, and sent Lewis and Clark to open
up a road to Asia, — Jefferson, more than any other,
had the vision of to-day.
Governor Clark went on to Washington.
Ramsay Crooks and Russell Farnham of the Astor
expedition were quartered at the same hotel with Floyd
of Virginia and Benton of Missouri.
Beside their whale-oil lamps they talked of Oregon.
Benton was writing for Oregon, — he made a noise in
all the papers. John Floyd framed a bill, the first for
Oregon occupancy.
Missouri was just coming in as a State. The moment
396 THE CONQUEST
Benton, her first Senator, was seated, he flew to Floyd's
support.
" We must occupy the Columbia," said Benton. "Mere
adventurers may enter upon it as ^neas entered upon the
Tiber, and as our forefathers came upon the Potomac,
the Delaware, and the Hudson, and renew the phenome
non of individuals laying the foundation of future em
pire. Upon the people of eastern Asia the establishment
of a civilised power upon the opposite coast of America
cannot fail to produce great and wonderful results.
Science, liberal principles, government, and the true re
ligion, may cast their lights across the intervening sea.
The valley of the Columbia may become the granary of
China and Japan, and an outlet for their imprisoned and
exuberant population."
Staid Senators smiled and called Benton a dreamer,
but he and Floyd were the prophets of to-day.
For thirty years after Astor had been driven out,
England and her fur companies enriched themselves in
Oregon waters. For thirty years Benton stood in his
place and fought to save us Oregon. From the bedside
of the dying Jefferson, and from the lips of the living
Clark, he took up the great enterprise of an overland
highway to India.
When Governor Clark came sorrowing back to St.
Louis with the little boys, Missouri was a State and a
new Governor sat in the chair, but though governors
came and governors went, the officer that had held the
position through all the territorial days was always called
" Governor " Clark. As United States superintendent
of Indian affairs for the West, Governor Clark now be
came practically autocrat of the redmen for life.
" If you ever think of marrying again, consider my
cousin Harriet."
More than a year Governor Clark " considered," and
then the most noted citizen of St. Louis married the hand
some widow Radford.
" From Philadelphia she haf a wedding trousseau,"
said the vivacious Creole girls, drinking tea in their wide
verandas. " She haf de majesty look, like one queen."
THE RED HEAD CHIEF 397
From the home of her brother, James Kennerly, the
fun-loving Harriet of other years went to become the
grave and dignified hostess in the home of the ex-
governor.
XVI
THE RED HEAD CHIEF
" TTASTEN, Ruskosky, rebraid my queue. Kings
I — I and half kings are in there as plenty as black-
A A berries in the woods, and I must see what is the
matter."
Hurriedly the Polish valet, who dressed Clark in his
later years, knelt to button the knees of his small clothes
and fasten on a big silk bow in place of a buckle. Di
rectly the tall figure wrapped in a cloak entered the council
chamber connected with his study.
The walls of the council chamber were covered with
portraits of distinguished chiefs, and with Indian arms
and dresses, the handsomest the West afforded. Nothing
pleased the redmen better than to be honoured by the
acceptance of some treasure for this museum.
Against this wall the Indians sat, and the little gray-
haired interpreter, Antony Le Claire, lit the tomahawk
pipe. As the fumes rolled upward the Red Head Chief
took his seat at the table before him. The Indians lifted
their heads. Justice would now be done.
It was a sultry day and the council doors were open.
But sultrier still was the debate within.
" Our Father," said the Great and Little Osages, " we
have come to meet our enemies, the Delawares and Shaw-
nees and Kickapoos and Peorias, in your Council Hall.
We ourselves can effect a peace."
And so the Red Head listened. " Make your peace."
Six days they argued, Paul Louise interpreter. Hot
and hotter grew the debate, and mutual recriminations.
398 THE CONQUEST
" White Hair's warriors shot at one of my young
men."
" But you, Dela wares, robbed our relations," cried the
Osage chiefs.
" You stole our otter-skins," retorted the Delawares.
" And you hunted on our lands."
" Last Summer when we were absent, you bad-hearted
Osages destroyed our fields of corn and cut up our gar
dens," cried the angry Shawnees, who always sided with
the Delawares.
" You speak with double tongues —
Clark stepped in and hushed the controversy.
" Who gave you leave to hunt on Osage lands? "
" White Hair and his principal braves," answered the
Delawares.
" When did they shoot at your man? "
" At the Big Bend of the Arkansas."
" Who owned the peltries the Osages took? "
" All of us."
" Very well then, restitution must be made."
Soothing as a summer breeze was his gentle voice,
" My children, I cannot have you injured. The Dela
wares are my children, and the Osages, the Shawnees,
the Kickapoos, and the Peorias. I cannot permit any one
to injure my children. Whoever does that is no longer
child of mine. You must bury the sharp hatchet under
ground."
He calmed the heated tribes and effected peace. Like
little children they gave each other strings of beads, pipes,
and tobacco, and departed reconciled.
" Bring all your difficulties to me or to Paul Louise and
we will judge for you," said the Red Head Chief, as one
by one they filed in plumed array down the steps of the
Council House.
Scarce had the reconciled tribes departed before officers
of the law brought in seven chiefs, hostages of the lowas,
— " Accused by the Sacs, Your Honour, of killing cattle ;
accused by the whites of killing settlers."
" My father." The mournful appealing tone of the
Indian speaker always affected Clark. He was singularly
THE RED HEAD CHIEF 399
fitted to be their judge and friend. " My son." There
was an air of sympathy and paternal kindness as the Red
Head Chief listened. His heart was stirred by their
wrongs, and his face would redden with indignation as he
listened to the pitiful tales of his children.
With bodies uncovered to the waist, with blanket on
the left arm and the right arm and breast bare, a chief
stepped forth to be examined concerning a border fray
with the backwoodsmen.
Drawing himself to his full height, and extending his
arm toward Clark, the Iowa began :
" Red Head, if I had done that of which my white
brother accuses me, I would not stand here now. The
words of my red head father have passed through both
my ears and I have remembered them. I am accused.
I am not guilty.
" I thought I would come down to see my red head
father to hold a talk with him.
" I come across the line. I see the cattle of my white
brother dead. I see the Sauk kill them in great numbers.
I said there would be trouble. I thought to go to my
village. I find I have no provisions. I say, ' Let us go
down to our white brother and trade for a little/ I do not
turn on my track to my village."
Then turning to the Sacs and pointing, -
" The Sauk who tells lies of me goes to my white
brother and says, ' The loway has killed your cattle.'
" When the lie has talked thus to my white brother, he
comes up to my village. We hear our white brother com
ing. We are glad and leave our cabins to tell him he is
welcome. While I shake hands with my white brother,
my white brother shoots my best chief through the
head, — shoots three my young men, a squaw, and her
children.
" My young men hear, they rush out, they fire, — four
of my white brothers fall. My people fly to the woods,
and die of cold and hunger."
Dropping his head and his arm, in tragic attitude he
stands, the picture of despair. The lip of the savage
quivers. He lifts his eyes, —
400 THE CONQUEST
" While I shake hands my white brother shoots my
chief, my son, my only son."
Only by consummate tact can Clark handle these dis
tressing conflicts of the border. Who is right and who is
wrong? The settlers hate the Indians, the Indians dread
and fear the settlers.
" Governor Clark," said the Shawnees and Delawares,
" since three or four years we are crowded by the whites
who steal our horses. We moved. You recommended
us to raise stock and cultivate our ground. That advice
we have followed, but again white men have come."
The Cherokees complained, " White people settle with
out our consent. They destroy our game and produce
discord and confusion."
Clark could see the heaving of their naked breasts and
their lithe bodies, the tigers of their kind, shaken by
irrepressible emotion.
And again in the Autumn, —
" What is it? " inquired the stranger as pennons came
glittering down the Missouri.
" Oh, nothing, only another lot of Indians coming
down to see their red-headed daddy," was the irreverent
response, as the solemn, calm-featured braves glided into
view, gazing as only savages can gaze at the wonders of
civilisation.
"What! going to war?" cried Clark, in a tone of
thunder, as they made known their errand at the Council
House. " Your Great Father, the President, forbids it.
He counsels his children to live in peace. If you insist on
listening to bad men I shall come out there and make you
desist."
The stormy excitement subsided. They shrank from
his reproofs, and felt and feared his power.
" Go home. Take these gifts to my children, and tell
them they were sent by the Red Head Chief."
Viewed with admiration, the presents were carefully
wrapped in skins to be laid away and treasured on many
a weary march and through many a sad vicissitude. A
few days in St. Louis, then away go the willowy copper-
skin paddlers to dissuade their braves from incurring the
THE RED HEAD CHIEF 401
awful displeasure of the Red Head Chief. The West of
that day was sown with his medals that disappeared only
with the tribes.
In time they came to know Clark's signature, and pre
served it as a sacred talisman. Could the influence of one
man have availed against armies of westward pressing
trappers, traders, and pioneers, the tribes would have been
civilised.
" Shall we accept the missionaries? Shall we hearken
to their teaching? "
" Yes," he said to the Osages. " Yes," to the Pawnees,
to the Shawnees, and " Yes," to a delegation that came
from the far-off Nez Perces beyond the Rocky Mountains.
In days of friction and excitement Clark did more than
regiments to preserve peace on the frontier. He was a
buffer, a perpetual break-water between the conflicting
races.
As United States superintendent of Indian affairs the
Red Head Chief grew venerable. The stately old officer
lived in style in St. Louis, and as in the colonial time Sir
William Johnson ruled from the Atlantic to the Missis
sippi, so now Clark's word was Indian law from the Mis
sissippi to the Pacific. His voice was raised in continual
advantage to the Indian. While civilisation was pushing
west and west, and crowding them out of their old do
mains, he was softening as much as possible the rigour of
their contact with whites.
" Our position with regard to the Indians has entirely
changed," he used to say. " Before Wayne's campaigns
in 1794 and events of 1818, the tribes nearest our settle
ments were a formidable and terrible enemy. Since then
their power has been broken, their warlike spirit subdued,
and themselves sunk into objects of pity and commisera
tion. While strong and hostile, it has been our obvious
duty to weaken them ; now that they are weak and harm
less, and most of their lands fallen into our hands, justice
and humanity require us to cherish and befriend them.
To teach them to live in houses, to raise grain and stock,
to plant orchards, to set up landmarks, to divide their
possessions, to establish laws for their government, to get
26
402 THE CONQUEST
the rudiments of common learning, such as reading,
writing, and ciphering, are the first steps toward improv
ing their condition."
This was the policy of Jefferson, reaffirmed by Clark.
It was the key to all Clark's endeavours.
At Washington City he discussed the question with
President Monroe.
" But to take these steps with effect the Indians should
be removed west of the Mississippi and north of the
Missouri."
" Let them move singly or in families as they please,"
said Clark. " Place agents where the Indians cross the
Mississippi, to supply them with provisions and ammu
nition. A constant tide is now going on from Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois. They cross at St. Louis and St. Gene-
vieve, and my accounts show the aid which is given them.
Many leading chiefs are zealous in this work, and are
labouring hard to collect their dispersed and broken tribes
at their new and permanent homes."
" And the land? " inquired the President.
" It is well watered with numerous streams and some
large rivers, abounds with grass, contains prairies, land
for farms, and affords a temporary supply of game.
" It is in vain for us to talk about learning and religion ;
these Indians want food. The Sioux, the Osages, are
powerful tribes, — they are near our border, and my
official station enables me to know the exact truth. They
are distressed by famine; many die for want of food;
the living child is buried with the dead mother because
no one can spare it food through its helpless infancy.
" Grain, stock, fences are the first things. Property
alone can keep up the pride of the Indian and make him
ashamed of drunkenness, lying, and stealing.
" The period of danger with an Indian is when he
ceases to be a hunter and before he gets the means of
living from flocks and agriculture. In the transit from
a hunter to a farmer, he degenerates from a proud and
independent savage to a beggar, drunkard, thief. To
counteract the danger, property in horses, hogs, and
cattle is indispensable. They should be assisted in mak-
THE RED HEAD CHIEF 403
ing fences and planting orchards, and be instructed in
raising cotton and making cloth. Small mills should be
erected to save the women the labour of pounding corn,
and mechanics should be employed to teach the young
Indians how to make ploughs, carts, wheels, hoes, and
axes."
Benton and other great men argued in the Senate.
" In contact with the white race the Indians degenerate.
They are a dangerous neighbour within our borders.
They prevent the expansion of the white race, and the
States will not be satisfied until all their soil is open to
settlement."
And so, to remove the Indians to a home of their own
became the great work of Clark's life.
"A home where the whites shall never come!" the
Indians were delighted. " We will look at these lands."
" I recommend that the government send special agents
to collect the scattered bands and families and pay their
expenses to the lands assigned them," said Clark, esti
mating the cost at one hundred thousand dollars. But
not all of the tribes would listen.
In November, 1826, Clark drove from St. Louis in his
carriage to the Choctaw nation in Alabama, to persuade
them to move west of the Mississippi.
" After many years spent in reflection," said the Com
missioners, " your Great Father, the President, has de
termined upon a plan for your happiness. The United
States has a large unsettled country on the west side of
the great river Mississippi into which they do not
intend their white settlements shall enter. This is the
country in which our Great Father intends to settle his
red children.
" Many of the tribes are now preparing to remove and
are making application for land. The Cherokees and
Muscogees have procured lands, and your people can have
five times as much land in that fine country as they are
now living on in this."
Never before in the conquest of nations had the weaker
race been offered such advantageous terms. Two days
passed while the Indians considered and argued among
themselves.
404 THE CONQUEST
"What shall we give to you?" asked the Commis
sioners. " These lands and titles to them, provisions
and clothing, a cow and corn and farming implements
to each family, and blacksmiths and ploughmakers and
annuities."
" Friends and brothers of the Choctaw nation," said
Clark in the council, " I have spent half the period of
an accustomed life among you. Thirty-six years ago I
passed through your country and saw your distressed
condition. Now I see part of your nation much improved
in prosperity and civilisation. This affords me much
happiness. But I am informed that a very large ma
jority of the Choctaw nation are seeking food among the
swamps by picking cotton for white planters.
" Cannot provision be made to better their condition ?
" Let me recommend that the poorer and less enlight
ened be moved without delay to their lands west of the
Mississippi. There will I take pleasure in advancing their
interests. In my declining years it would be a great con
solation to me to see them prosper in agriculture.
" Come to my country where I can have it in my power
to act as your father and your friend. You shall be pro
tected and peaceful and happy."
The Choctaws were touched, but they answered, —
" We cannot part with our country. It is the land of
our birth, — the hills and streams of our youth."
XVII
THE GREAT COUNCIL AT PRAIRIE
DU CHIEN
ST. LOUIS was a cold place in those prairie years;
a great deal of snow fell, and sleighbells rang be
side the Great River. No Indians came during the
cold weather, but with the springing grass and blossom
ing trees, each year the Indians camped around the twin
lakes at Maracasta, Clark's farm west of St. Louis.
THE GREAT COUNCIL
405
There were wigwams all over Maracasta. James Ken-
nerly, Clark's Indian deputy, busy ever with the ruddy
aborigines, dealing out annuities, arranging for treaties
and instructing the tribes, kept open house for the chiefs
at Cote Plaquemine, the Persimmon Hill. Clark's boys
shot bows and arrows with the little Indians, Kennedy's
little girls made them presents of " kinnikinick," dried
leaves of the sumac and red osier dogwood, to smoke in
their long pipes.
Every delegation came down laden with gifts for the
Red Head, — costly furs, buffalo robes, bows, arrows,
pipes, moccasins.
Tragedies of the plains came daily to the ears of Gen
eral Clark, far, far beyond the reach of government in
the wild battle-ground of the West.
In 1822 the Sioux and Cheyennes combined against
the Crows and fell upon their villages. In the slaughter
of that day five thousand defenceless men, women, and
children were butchered on the prairie. All their lodges
and herds of horses and hundreds of captive girls were
carried away. As a people the Crows never recovered.
Drunk with victory the triumphant Sioux rolled back
on the Chippewas, Sacs, Foxes, and lowas.
" If continued, these wars will embroil all the tribes
of the West," said Clark. " We must do something
more to promote peace. They must become civilised."
President Monroe was working up a new Indian policy,
with Clark as a chief adviser.
" Go, Paul Louise, take this talk to my Osages. I am
coming up to their country. Tell them to meet me on the
first of June."
In his canoe, with his squaw and his babies, the wiz
ened little Frenchman set out. He could not read, he
could not write, he could only make his mark, but the
Indians loved and trusted Paul Louise.
" And you, Baronet Vasquez, take this to the Kansas
nation."
Vasquez belonged to the old Spanish regime. As a
youth he had gone out with the Spanish garrison at the
cession of St. Louis, to return a fur trader.
4o6 THE CONQUEST
Then came Lafayette from the memories of Monti-
cello. Escorted by a troop of horse, he had ascended that
historic mountain. The alert lithe figure of the little
Marquis leaped from the carriage; at the same moment
the door opened, revealing the tall, bent, wasted figure
of Jefferson in the pillared portico. The music ceased,
and every head uncovered. Slowly the aged Jefferson
descended the steps, slowly the little Marquis approached
his friend, then crying, with , outstretched arms, " Ah,
Jefferson ! " " Ah, Lafayette ! " each fell upon the
other's bosom. The gentlemen of the cavalcade turned
away with tears, and the two were left to solitude and
recollection.
Long and often had Jefferson and Lafayette laboured
together in anxious and critical periods of the past. It
was in chasing " the boy " Lafayette that the British
came to Charlottesville. When Jefferson was minister in
Paris, the young and popular nobleman assisted the un
accustomed American at the Court of France. Together
they had seen the opening of the French Revolution.
What memories came back as they sat in the parlour at
Monticello, discussing the momentous events of two con
tinents in which they had been actors !
" What would I have done with the Queen?" asked
the aged Jefferson. " I should have shut her up in a
convent, putting harm out of her power. I have ever
believed if there had been no Queen there would have
been no French Revolution."
Lafayette went to Montpelier to see Madison, and then
to Yorktown, over the same road which he himself had
opened in 1781 in the retreat before Cornwallis. One
long ovation- followed his route. Even old ladies who
had seen him in their youth pressed forward with the
plea, " Let me see the young Marquis again ! " forgetful
of the flight of years. Echoes of his triumphal tour
had reached the border. St. Louis, a city and a State
not dreamed of in Revolutionary days, begged the honour
of entertaining Lafayette.
Far down the river they saw the smoke of his steamer,
coming up from New Orleans.
THE GREAT COUNCIL 407
" Welcome! " the hills echoed. " Vive Lafayette! "
The Marquis lifted his eyes, — white stone houses gay
with gardens and clusters of verdure arose before him
in a town of five thousand inhabitants. Below stood the
massive stone forts of the Spanish time, and on the brow
of the bluff frowned the old round tower, the last fading
relic of feudalism in North America.
Every eye was fixed upon the honoured guest. A few
were there who could recall the pride of Lafayette in his
American troops, with their helmets and flowing crests
and the sabres he himself had brought from France. The
banquet, the toasts, the ball, all these have passed into
tradition.
The Marquis visited Clark's cabinet of Indian curios.
" I present you this historic cloak of an Indian chief,"
said the General, offering a robe like a Russian great
coat.
In turn, Lafayette presented his mess chest, carried
through the Revolution, and placed on the Governor's
finger a ring of his hair. Later Clark sent him the
live cub of a grizzly bear, that grew to be a wonder in
the Jardin des Plantes of Paris.
"And your great brother, George Rogers Clark?"
inquired the Marquis.
" He died seven years ago at Louisville," answered the
Governor.
" In securing the liberties of this country I esteem him
second only to Washington," said Lafayette.
" Those thieving Osages have taken six more of my
horses," complained Chouteau the next morning at the
office of Governor Clark.
" And four blankets and three axes of me," added
Baptiste Dardenne.
" Worse yet, they have stolen my great-coat and razor
case," said Manuel Roderique.
Two thousand dollars' worth of claims were paid in
that summer of 1825.
" We must get them out of the way," persisted the ex
asperated whites.
" Acts and acts of Congress regulating trade and in-
4o8 THE CONQUEST
tercourse with the tribes are of no avail. They must be
removed, and as far as possible. They are banditti, rob
bers ! " said Benton.
In spite of all proclamations clothes disappeared from
the line, silk stockings and bed-quilts and ladies' hats
mysteriously went into the wigwams of the vagrants.
''' This state of affairs is intolerable! " exclaimed Ben-
ton. " Governor Clark, if you will conclude a treaty re
moving those tribes to the West I will stake my honour
on putting a ratification through Congress. I '11 present
the case ! "
Again the great senator ground out the words be
tween his teeth, " / 'II present the case. It will be a
kindness to both parties. The poor Indians have lost
all, — we must reimburse them, we must take care of
them, they must have a home, — but far away, far
away!" shaking his fingers and closing his eyes with
the significant shrug so well known to the friends of
Colonel Benton.
" Not so bad as eet once was," urged the kind-hearted
Creoles. " Not so bad by far. In de old Spanish days
dey once left St. Genevieve wit'out a horse to turn a
mill. Dey came in to de village in de night and carried
away everyt'ing dey could find. Nobody ever pursue
dem. But lesAmencams, dey chase dem. But den," com
mented the tolerant Creoles, " de Osage do not kill, like
de Kickapoo and de Cherokee. Dey take de goods, steal
de furs, beat with ramrods, drive him off, — but dey
don't kill! "
So in May, after the departure of Lafayette, Gov
ernor Clark steamed up the Missouri, met the Kansas
and Osage Indians, and made treaties for the cession of
all their lands within the present boundary of Missouri.
" You shall have lands, hogs, fowls, cattle, carts, and
farming tools to settle farther west."
This was wealth to the poor Osages, whose hunting
fields had become exhausted.
" Go to the earth and till it, it will give you bread and
meat and clothes and comfort and happiness. You may
talk about your poverty always, and it will never make
THE GREAT COUNCIL 409
you better off. You must be industrious," said Clark.
" And your old friend, Boone, shall be your farmer."
For almost forty years now they had known Daniel
M. Boone, the son of the great pioneer, — since, indeed,
those days when as a boy of eighteen he trapped on
the Kansas. Two springs later the removal was made,
and Boone, as " farmer for the Kansas Indians," took
up his residence in the Kaw Valley where his chimney
stacks may yet be seen near the present Lecompton. The
next year was born Napoleon Boone, the first white child
in Kansas.
All this time the northern clans were gathering at
Prairie du Chien, a work of months. June 30 Governor
Clark's barge started north from St. Louis, laden with
presents, provisions, interpreters.
" We are afraid to come," said the Omahas. " We are
afraid to cross the hostile territory."
William Preston Clark, in looks and dress the blonde
double of the poet Byron, said, " Let me bring them,
father."
So young Clark, intimate with Indians, went after
the Omahas and brought them safely in. But Big Elk
left his medal with his son, " I never expect to reach
home alive," he said. " We cross the country of the
Sacs!"
The Yanktons refused. " Shall we be butchered by
the Sacs?" But later they came to St. Louis, smoked
with the Sacs and shook hands. Even the Sioux feared
the Sacs, the warriors of the central valley.
Mahaska, head chief of the lowas, with his braves
went up with Clark, and Rant-che-wai-me, the Flying
Pigeon. Rant-che-wai-me had been to Washington. A
year ago, when her husband left her alone at the wig
wam on the Des Moines, she set out for St. Louis. The
steamer was at the shore, the chief was about to embark,
when he felt a blow upon his back. Shaking his plumes
in wrath, Mahaska turned, — to behold the Flying
Pigeon, with uplifted tomahawk in her hand.
" Am I your wife? " she cried.
" You are my wife," answered the surprised chief.
4io THE CONQUEST
" Are you my husband? "
" I am your husband."
" Then will I, too, go with you to shake the Great
Father by the hand."
Mahaska smiled, — " You are my pretty wife, Flying
Pigeon; you shall go to Washington." Clark, too,
smiled, — " Yes, she can go."
The pretty Rant-che-wai-me was feted at the White
House, and had her picture painted by a great artist as
a typical Iowa Princess. And now she was going to
Prairie du Chien.
Not for ten years had Clark visited his northern terri
tory. Few changes had come on the Mississippi. Twice
a year Colonel George Davenport brought a hundred
thousand dollars' worth of goods to his trading post at
Rock Island.
Beyond, Julien Dubuque lay in perpetual state on his
hills, wrapped only in a winding sheet in his tomb, ex
posed to the view of every traveller that cared to climb
the grassy height to gaze through the grated windows
of his lonely mausoleum.
" The Great Chief, the Red Head is coming," whis
pered all the Indians, as Clark's barges hove in sight.
Prairie du Chien was alive with excitement. Gov
ernor Cass of Michigan was already there. Not only the
village, but the entire banks of the river for miles above
and below were covered with high-pointed buffalo tents.
Horses browsed upon the bluffs in Arabian abandon.
Below, tall and warlike, Chippewas and Winnebagoes
from Superior and the valley of St. Croix jostled Me-
nomonees, Pottawattamies, and Ottawas from Lake
Michigan and Green Bay.
" Whoop-oh-hoo-oh ! "'
Major Taliferro from the Falls of St. Anthony made
the grand entry with his Sioux and Chippewas, four
hundred strong, drums beating, flags flying. Taliferro
was very popular with the Sioux, — even the squaws
said he was " Weechashtah Washtay" — a handsome
man.
Over from Sault Ste. Marie the learned agent School-
THE GREAT COUNCIL 41 1
craft had brought one hundred and fifty Chippewas,
brothers of Hiawatha.
Keokuk, the Watchful Fox, with his Sacs and lowas,
was the last to arrive. Leagued against the Sioux, they
had camped on an island below to paint and dress,
and came up the Mississippi attired in full war costume
singing their battle-song. It was a thrilling sight when
they came upon the scene with spears, battle-lances, and
crested locks like Roman helmets, casting bitter glances
at their ancient foe, the Sioux. Nearly nude, with feather
war-flags flying, and beating tambourines, the Sacs landed
in compact ranks, breathing defiance. From his earliest
youth Keokuk had fought the Sioux.
" Bold, martial, flushed with success, Keokuk landed,
majestic and frowning," said Schoolcraft, " and as an
other Coriolanus spoke in the council and shook his war
lance at the Sioux."
At the signal of a gun, every day at ten o'clock, the
chiefs assembled.
" Children," said Governor Clark to the assembled
savages, " your Great Father has not sent us here to ask
anything from you — we want nothing — not the small
est piece of your land. We have come a great way to
meet for your own good. Your Great Father the Presi
dent has been informed that war is carried on among his
red children, — the Sacs, Foxes, and Chippewas on one
side and the Sioux on the other, — and that the wars of
some of you began before any of you were born."
" Heigh ! heigh ! " broke forth the silent smokers.
"Heigh! heigh!" exclaimed the warriors. "Heigh!
< heigh ! " echoed the vast and impatient concourse around
the council.
" Your father thinks there is no cause for continuation
of war between you. There is land enough for you to
live and hunt on and animals enough. Why, instead of
peaceably following the game and providing for your
families, do you send out war parties to destroy each
other ? The Great Spirit made you all of one colour and
placed you upon the land. You ought to live in peace as
brothers of one great family. Your Great Father has
4i2 THE CONQUEST
heard of your war songs and war parties, — they do not
please him. He desires that his red children should bury
the tomahawk."
" Heigh! heigh!"
" Children ! look around you. See the result of wars
between nations who were once powerful and are now
reduced to a few wandering families. You have exam
ples enough before you.
" Children, your wars have resulted from your having
no definite boundaries. You do not know what belongs
to you, and your people follow the game into lands
claimed by other tribes."
" Heigh ! heigh ! "
" Children, you have all assembled under your Father's
flag. You are under his protection. Blood must not be
spilt here. Whoever injures one of you injures us, and
we will punish him as we would punish one of our own
people."
" Heigh! heigh! heigh! " cried all the Indians.
" Children," said General Cass, " your Great Father
does not want your land. He wants to establish boun
daries and peace among you. Your Great Father has
strong limbs and a piercing eye, and an arm that extends
from the sea to Red River.
" Children, you are hungry. We will adjourn for two
hours."
" Heigh ! heigh ! heigh-h ! " rolled the chorus across
the Prairie.
As to an army, rations were distributed, beef, bread,
corn, salt, sugar, tobacco. Each ate, ate, ate, — till not
a scrap was left to feed a humming-bird.
Revered of his people, Wabasha and his pipe-bearers
were the observed of all.
" I never yet was present at so great a council as
this," said Wabasha. Three thousand were at Prairie
du Chien.
The Sioux? Far from the northwest they said their
fathers came, — the Tartar cheek was theirs. Wabasha
and his chiefs alone had the Caucasian countenance.
Three mighty brothers ruled the Sioux in the days
THE GREAT COUNCIL 413
of Pontiac, — Wabasha, Red Wing, and Little Crow.
Their sons, Wabasha, Red Wing, and Little Crow ruled
still.
"Boundaries?" they knew not the meaning of the
word. Restless, anxious, sharp-featured Little Crow
fixed his piercing hazel eye upon the Red Head, —
'' Taku-wakan! — that is incomprehensible!"
" Heigh! What does this mean?" exclaimed the
Chippewas.
" We are all one people," sagely observed Mahaska,
the Iowa. " My father, I claim no lands in particular."
" I never yet heard that any one had any exclusive
right to the soil," said Chambler, the Ottawa.
" I have a tract of country. It is where I was born
and now live," said Red Bird, the Winnebago. " But
the Foxes claim it and the Sacs, the Menomonees, and
Omahas. Wre use it in common."
Red Bird was a handsome Indian, dressed Yankton
fashion in white unsoiled deerskin and scarlet, and glove-
fitting moccasins, — the dandy of his tribe.
The debate grew animated. " Our tract is so small,"
cried the Menomonees, " that we cannot turn around
without touching our neighbours." Then every Indian
began to describe his boundaries, crossing and recross-
ing each other.
' These are the causes of all your troubles," said Clark.
"It is better for each of you to give up some disputed
claim than to be fighting for ever about it."
That night the parties two by two discussed their lines,
the first step towards civilisation. They drew maps on
the ground, — " my hunting ground," and " mine," and
" mine." After days of study the boundary rivers were
acknowledged, the belt of wampum was passed, and the
pipe of peace.
Wabasha, acknowledged by every chief to be first of
the Seven Fires of the Sioux, was treated by all with
marked distinction and deference. And yet Wabasha,
dignified and of superior understanding, when asked,
" Wabasha ? What arrangement did you make with the
Foxes about boundaries?" replied, "I never made any
4i4 THE CONQUEST
arrangement about the line. The only arrangement I
made was about peace ! "
" When I heard the voice of my Great Father," said
Mongazid, the Loon's Foot, from Fond du Lac, " when
I heard the voice of my Father coming up the Mississippi,
calling to this treaty, it seemed as a murmuring wind. I
got up from my mat where I sat musing, and hastened
to obey. My pathway has been clear and bright. Truly
it is a pleasant sky above our heads this day. There is
not a cloud to darken it. I hear nothing but pleasant
words. The raven is not waiting for his prey. I hear
no eagle cry, ' Come, let us go, — the feast is ready, —
the Indian has killed his brother.' '
Shingaba Wassin of Sault Ste. Marie, head chief of
the Chippewas, had fought with Britain in the War of
1812 and lost a brother at the battle of the Thames. He
and a hundred other chiefs with their pipe bearers signed
the treaty. Everybody signed. And all sang, even the
girls, the Witcheannas of the Sioux.
" We have buried our bad thoughts in the ashes of the
pipe," said Little Crow.
" I always had good counsel from Governor Clark,"
observed Red Wing.
" You put this medal on my neck in 1812," said De-
corah, the Winnebago, " and when I returned I gave
good advice to the young men of our village."
After a fierce controversy and the rankling of a hun
dred wrongs, the warring tribes laid down their lances
and buried the tomahawk. Sacs and Sioux shook hands ;
the dividing lines were fixed ; all the chiefs signed, and
the tribes were at peace for the first time in a thousand
years.
" Pray God it may last," said Clark, as his boat
went away homeward along with the Sacs down the
Mississippi.
The great Council at Prairie du Chien was over.
THE LORDS OF THE RIVERS 415
XVIII
THE LORDS OF THE RIVERS
FOR thirty years after the cession, St. Louis was a
great military centre. Sixty thousand dollars a
year went into the village from Bellefontaine, and
still more after the opening of Jefferson Barracks in 1826.
Nor can it be denied that the expenditure of large sums
of money in Indian annuities through the office of Gov
ernor Clark did much for the prosperity of the frontier
city.
And ever the centre of hospitality was the home of
Governor Clark. Both the Governor and his wife en
joyed life, took things leisurely, both had the magnetic
faculty of winning people, and they set a splendid table.
" I like to see my house full," said the Governor.
There were no modern hotels in those days, and his house
became a stopping place for all noted visitors to St. Louis.
Their old-fashioned coach, with the footman up behind
in a tall silk hat, met at the levee many a distinguished
stranger, — travellers, generals, dukes, and lords from
Europe who came with letters to the Indian autocrat of
the West. All had to get a pass from Clark, and all
agents and sub-agents were under and answerable to him.
But unspoiled in the midst of it passed the plain, un-
aristocratic Red Head Chief and friend of the oppressed.
For years he corresponded with Lafayette, and yet Clark
was not a scholar. He was a man of affairs, of which this
country has abounded in rich examples.
Prince Paul of Wurtemberg came, the Duke of Saxe-
Weimar, and Maximilian, Prince of Wied, all seeking
passports for the Indian country, all coming back with
curios for their palaces and castles.
Very politely Mrs. Clark listened to their broken Eng
lish and patiently conversed with them when the Gov
ernor was away.
4i6 THE CONQUEST
One of the first pianos came to the Clark parlours, and
on special occasions the Indian council room was cleared
and decorated for grand balls. Many a young " mille-
toer," as the Creoles called them, dashed up from Jefferson
Barracks to win a bride among the girls of St. Louis.
For the preservation of peace and the facilitation of
Indian removals, Fort Des Moines was built among the
lowas, Fort Atkinson near the present Omaha, Fort
Snelling at the Falls of St. Anthony, and Fort Leaven-
worth on the borders of Kansas.
Half the area of the United States lay out there, with
no law, no courts, but those of battle. As quietly as pos
sible, step by step, the savage land was taken into custody.
And the pretty girls of St. Louis did their share to recon
cile the " milletoers " to life at the frontier posts.
"Ho for Santa Fe!" One May morning in 1824 a
caravan of waggons passed through the streets of St.
Louis.
Penned in the far-off Mexican mountains a little colony
of white people were shut from the world. Twice before
a few adventurous pack-trains had penetrated their moun
tain solitudes, as Phoenicians of old went over to Egypt,
India, Arabia.
ff Los Americanos! Los Americanos! " shouted the
eager mountain dwellers, rushing out to embrace the
traders and welcome them to their lonely settlement.
Silks, cottons, velvets, hardware, were bought up in a
trice, and the fortunate traders returned to St. Louis
with horseload after horseload of gold and silver bullion.
" Those people want us. But the Spanish authorities
are angry and tax us as they used to tax the traders at
New Orleans. The people beg us to disregard their tyran
nous rulers, — they must have goods."
In 1817 young Auguste Chouteau tried it, and was
cast into prison and his goods confiscated.
" What wish you? " demanded the Spanish Governor,
in answer to repeated solicitations from the captive.
" Mi libertad Gobernador."
Wrathfully they locked him closer than ever in the old
donjon of Santa Fe.
THE LORDS OF THE RIVERS 417
"My neighbour's son imprisoned there without cause!"
exclaimed Governor Clark. All the old Spanish ani
mosity roiled in his veins. He appealed to Congress.
There was a rattling among the dry bones, and Chouteau
and his friends were released.
And now, on the I5th of May, 1824, eighty men set
out in the first waggon train, with twenty thousand dol
lars' worth of merchandise for the isolated Mexican cap
ital. In September the caravan returned with their capital
increased a hundred-fold in sacks of gold and silver and
ten thousand dollars' worth of furs.
The Santa Fe trade was established never to be shaken,
though Indian battles, like conflicts with Arab sheiks of
the desert, grew wilder than any Crusader's tale. Young
men of the Mississippi dreamed of that " farther west "
of Santa Fe and Los Angeles.
" We must have a safe road," said the traders. " We
may wander off into the desert and perish."
In the same year Senator Benton secured an appropri
ation of ten thousand dollars for staking the plains to
Santa Fe.
" We must have protection," said the traders to Gov
ernor Clark at the Council House. At Council Grove, a
buffalo haunt in a thickly wooded bottom at the head
waters of the Neosho in the present Kansas, Clark's agents
met the Osage Indians and secured permission for the
caravans to pass through their country. But the dreaded
Pawnees and Comanches were as yet unapproachable.
In spite of the inhumanity of Spaniards, in spite of mur
derous Pawnees, in spite of desert dust and red-brown
grass and cacti, year by year the caravans grew, the
people became more friendly and solicitous of each other's
trade, until one day New Mexico was ready to step over
into the ranks of the States.
And one day Kit Carson, whose mother was a Boone,
only sixteen and small of his age, ran away from a hard
task-master to join the Santa Fe caravan and grow up on
the plains.
Daniel Boone was dead, at eighty-six, just as Missouri
came in as a State. Jesse, the youngest of the Boone
27
418 THE CONQUEST
boys to come out from Kentucky, was in the Constitu
tional Convention that adjourned in his honour, and
Jesse's son, Albert Gallatin Boone, in 1825, joined as
private secretary that wonderful Ashley expedition that
keel-boated up the Platte, crossed from its head-waters
over to Green River, kept on west, discovered the Great
South Pass of the Rockies, the overland route of future
emigration, and set up its tents on the borders of Utah
Lake.
Overwhelmed with debt Ashley set out, — he came
back a millionaire with the greatest collection of furs
ever known up to that time. Everything was Ashley
then, " Ashley boats " and " Ashley beaver," - he was
the greatest man in St. Louis, and was sent to Congress.
Sixty years ago the Lords of the Rivers ruled St. Louis.
The Rocky Mountain Fur Company went out and
camped on the site of a dozen future capitals. From the
Green River Valley under the Wind River Mountains of
Wyoming, from the Tetons of Colorado, the Uintahs of
Utah, and the Bitter Roots of Idaho, from, the shining
Absarokas and the Bighorn Alps, they came home with
mink and otter, beaver, bear, and buffalo.
The American Fur Company came to St. Louis, and
the Chouteaus, at first the rivals, became the partners of
John Jacob Astor. Born in the atmosphere of furs, for
forty years Pierre Chouteau the younger had no rival in
the Valley except Clark. The two stood side by side, one
representing commerce, the other the Government.
Pierre Chouteau, the largest fur trader west of the
Alleghanies, sent his boats to Itasca, the headwaters of
the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Yellowstone, the Osage,
the Kansas, and the Platte, employing a thousand men
and paying skilled pilots five thousand dollars for a single
expedition. With Chouteau' s convoys came down Clark's
chiefs, going back in the same vessels. To their untu
tored minds the trader's capital and the Red Head Town
were synonymous.
If there was a necessary conflict between the policy of
the government and that of the fur trade, no one could
have softened it more than the Red Head diplomat. With
THE LORDS OF THE RIVERS 419
infinite tact and unfailing good sense, he harmonised,
reconciled, and pushed for the best interest of the Indian.
" Give up the chase and settle into agricultural life,"
said Clark's agents to the Indians.
"Go to the chase," said the trader.
Clark sent up hoes to supersede the shoulder-blade of
the buffalo. The trader sent up fusils and ammunition.
The two combined in the evolution of the savage. The
squaw took the hoe, the brave the gun.
Winter expresses came down to St. Louis from the
far-off Powder and the Wind River Mountains. " Send
us merchandise." With the first breaking ice of Spring
the boats were launched, the caravans ready.
Deck-piled, swan-like upon the water the Missouri
steamboat started. Pierre Chouteau was there to see her
off, Governor Clark was there to bid farewell to his chiefs.
Engages of the Company, fiercely picturesque, with leg
knives in their garters, jumped to store away the cargo.
Up as far as St. Charles Clark and the Chouteaus some
times went with the ladies of their families to escort the
up-bound steamer, and with a last departing, " Bon voy
age! bon voyage, mes voyageurs!" disembarked to re
turn to St. Louis.
On, on steamed the messenger of commerce and civili
sation, touching later at Fort Pierre Chouteau in the
centre of the great Sioux country, the capital of South
Dakota to-day, at Fort Union at the Yellowstone, where
McKenzie lived in state like the Hudson's Bay magnates
at the north, at Fort Benton at the foot of the Great Falls
of the Missouri. Traders from St. Louis laid the foun
dations of Kansas City and Topeka, built the first forts
at Council Bluffs and Omaha, pre-empted the future sites
of Yankton and Bismarck.
"A boat! a boat!"
For a hundred miles Indian runners brought word.
Barely had the steamer touched the wharf before the
solitude became populous with colour and with sound.
Night and day went on the loading and unloading of furs
and merchandise. A touch of the hand, a farewell, —
before the June rise falls, back a hundred miles a day she
420 THE CONQUEST
snorts to St. Louis with tens of thousands of buffalo
robes, buffalo tongues, and buffalo hides, and carefully
wrapped bales of the choicest furs. The cargoes opened,
weighed, recounted, repacked, down the river the smoke
stacks go in endless procession on the way to New York.
Overland on horseback rode Pierre Chouteau to Phila
delphia or New York, to arrange shipments to France
and England, and to confer with John Jacob Astor. Back
up from New Orleans came boatloads of furniture to
beautify the homes of St. Louis, bales on bales of copper
and sheet-iron kettles, axes and beaver traps, finger rings,
beads, blankets, bracelets, steel wire and ribbons, the in-
dispensables of the frontier fur trade.
Sometimes fierce battles were fought up the river, and
troops were dispatched, — for commerce, the civiliser,
stops not. The sight of troops paraded in uniforms, the
glare of skyrockets at night, the explosion of shells and
the colours of bunting and banners, the blare of brass
bands and the thunder of artillery, won many a bloodless
victory along the prairies of the West.
But blood flowed, fast and faster, when trapping
gave way to Days of Gold and the pressure of advanc
ing settlement.
The trapper saw no gold. Otter, beaver, mink, and fox
filled his horizon. Into every lonely glen where the beaver
built his house, the trapper came. A million dollars a
year was the annual St. Louis trade.
Rival fur companies kept bubbling a tempest in a tea
pot. They fought each other, fought the Hudson's Bay
Company. West and west passed the fighting border, —
St. Lawrence, Detroit, Mackinaw, Mandan, Montana,
Oregon.
Astor, driven out by the War of 1812, had been super
seded on the Columbia by Dr. John McLoughlin, a Hud
son's Bay magnate who combined in himself the functions
of a Chouteau and a Clark. But the story of McLoughlin
is a story by itself.
FOUR INDIAN AMBASSADORS 421
XIX
FOUR INDIAN AMBASSADORS
AS the years went by Clark's plant of the Indian
Department extended. In his back row were
found the office and Council House, rooms for
visiting Indians, an armory for repairs of Indian guns
and blacksmiths' shops for Indian work, extending from
Main Street to the river.
Daily he sat in his office reading reports from his
agents of Indian occurrences.
Four muskrats or two raccoon skins the Indians paid
for a quart of whiskey.
" Whiskey ! " Clark stamped his foot. " A drunken
Indian is more to be dreaded than a tiger in the jungle!
An Indian cannot be found among a thousand who would
not, after a first drink, sell his horse, his gun, or his last
blanket for another drink, or even commit a murder to
gratify his passion for spirits. There should be total
prohibition." And the Government made that the law.
" I hear that you have sent liquor into the .Indian coun
try," he said to the officers of the American Fur Com
pany. " Can you refute the charge? "
And the great Company, with Chouteau and Astor at
its head, hastened to explain and extenuate.
There was trouble with Indian agents who insisted
on leaving their posts and coming to St. Louis, troubles
with Indians who wanted to see the President, enough
of them to have kept the President for ever busy with
Indian affairs.
The Sacs and the Sioux were fighting again.
" Why not let us fight? " said Black Hawk. " White
men fight, — they are fighting now."
Twice in the month of May, 1830, Sacs and Foxes
came down to tell of their war with the Sioux. " We
might sell our Illinois lands and move west," hinted the
422 THE CONQUEST
Sacs and Foxes. Instantly Clark approved and wrote to
Washington.
" I shall have to go up there and quiet those tribes,"
said Clark. In July, 1830, again he set out for Prairie
du Chien. Indian runners went ahead announcing, " The
Red Head Chief! the Red Head Chief! "
Seventy-eight Sacs and Foxes crowded into his boats
and went up. This time in earnest, Clark began buying
lands, giving thousands of dollars in annuities, provi
sions, clothing, lands, stock, agricultural implements.
Many of these Indians came on with him down to St.
Louis to get their presents and pay.
There came a wailing from the Indians of Illinois.
" The game is gone. Naked and hungry, we need
help."
" Poor, misguided, and unreflecting savages ! " ex
claimed the Governor. ' The selfish policy of the traders
would keep them in the hunter's state. The Government
would have them settled and self-supporting."
Funds ran out, but Clark on his own credit again
and again went ahead with his work of humanity, mov
ing families, tribes, nations. Assistance in provisions
and stock was constantly called for. The great western
migration of tribes from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, was
sweeping on, the movement of a race. The Peorias were
crossing, the Weas, Piankeshaws, and others forgotten
to-day.
' Those miserable bands of Illinois rovers, those
wretched nations in want of clothes and blankets ! "
Clark wrote to Washington, begging the Department for
help. Their annuities, a thousand dollars a year for
twelve years, had expired.
" Exchange your lands for those in the West," he
urged the Indians. To the Government he recommended
an additional annuity to be used in breaking up, fencing,
and preparing those lands for cultivation.
Horses were stolen from the settlers by tens and twen
ties and fifties, and cattle killed. The farmers were
exasperated.
" Banditti, robbers, thieves, they must get out ! The
FOUR INDIAN AMBASSADORS 423
Indians hunt on our lands, and kill our tame stock. They
are a great annoyance."
For two years Governor Edwards had been asking for
help.
" The General Government has been applied to long
enough to have freed us from so serious a grievance. If
it declines acting with effect, it will soon learn that these
Indians will be removed, and that very promptly."
Clark himself was personally using every exertion to
prevail on the Indians to move as the best means of pre
serving tranquillity, and did all he could without actual
coercion. The Indians continued to promise to go, but
they still remained.
" More time," said the Indians. " Another year."
The combustible train was laid, — only a spark was
needed, only a move of hostility, to fire the country.
Will Black Hawk apply that spark?
" We cannot go," said the Pottawattamies. " The sale
of our lands was made by a few young men without our
consent."
Five hundred Indians determined to hold all the north
ern part of Illinois for ever.
Sacs, Foxes, Pottawattamies, sent daily letters and
complaints. "Our Father! our Father! our Father!"
- it was a plea and a prayer, and trouble, trouble,
trouble. Black Partridge's letters make one weep.
" Some of my people will be dead before Spring."
Meanwhile agents were ahead surveying lands in that
magic West. The Indians were becoming as interested
in migration as the whites had been; the same causes
were pushing them on.
Clark was busily making contracts for saw-mills and
corn-mills on the Platte and Kansas, arranging for means
of transportation, for provisions for use on the way and
after they settled, for oxen and carts and stock, — when
one day four strange Indians, worn and bewildered, ar
rived at St. Louis, out of that West. Some kind hand
guided them to the Indian office.
That tunic, that bandeau of fox skins, — Clark re
called it as the tribal dress of a nation beyond the Rocky
424 THE CONQUEST
Mountains. With an expression of exquisite joy, old
Tunnachemootoolt, for it was he, the Black Eagle, rec
ognised the Red Head of a quarter of a century before.
Clark could scarcely believe that those Indians had trav
elled on foot nearly two thousand miles to see him at St.
Louis.
As but yesterday came back the memory of Camp
Chopunnish among the Nez Perces of Oregon. Over
Tunnachemootoolt' s camp the American flag was flying
when they arrived from the Walla Walla.
It did not take long to discover their story. Some
winters before an American trapper (in Oregon tradi
tion reputed to have been Jedediah Smith), watched the
Nez Perces dance around the sun-pole on the present site
of Walla Walla.
" It is not good," said the trapper, " such worship is
not acceptable to the Great Spirit. You should get the
white man's Book of Heaven."
Voyageurs and Iroquois trappers from the Jesuit
schools of Canada said the same. Then Ellice, a chief's
son, came back from the Red River country whither the
Hudson's Bay Company had sent him to be educated.
From several sources at once they learned that the white
men had a Book that taught of God.
" If this be true it is certainly high time that we had
the Book." The chiefs called a national council. " If
our mode of worship is wrong we must lay it aside. We
must know about this. It cannot be put off."
" If we could only find the trail of Lewis and Clark
they would tell us the truth."
" Yes, Lewis and Clark always pointed upward. They
must have been trying to tell us."
So, benighted, bewildered, the Nez Perces talked
around their council fires. Over in the buffalo country
Black Eagle's band met the white traders.
" They come from the land of Lewis and Clark," said
the Eagle. " Let us follow them."
And so, four chiefs were deputed for that wonder
ful journey, two old men who had known Lewis and
Clark, — Black Eagle and the Man-of-the-Morning,
FOUR INDIAN AMBASSADORS 425
whose mother was a Flathead, — and two young men,
— Rabbit-Skin-Leggings of the White Bird band on
Salmon River, Black Eagle's brother's son, and No-
Horns-On-His-Head, a young brave of twenty, who was
a doubter of the old beliefs.
' They went out by the Lolo trail into the buffalo
country of Montana," say their descendants still living
in Idaho.
One day they reached St. Louis and inquired for the
Red Head Chief.
Very well Governor Clark remembered his Nez Perce-
Flathead friends. His silver locks were shaken by roars
of laughter at their reminders of his youth, the bear
hunts, the sale of buttons for camas and for kouse. The
hospitality of those chiefs who said, " The horses on
these hills are ours, take what you need," should now be
rewarded.
With gratitude and with the winsomeness for which
he was noted, he invited them into his own house and
to his own table. Mrs. Clark devoted herself to their
entertainment.
Black Eagle insisted on an early council. " We have
heard of the Book. We have come for the Book."
" What you have heard is true," answered Clark, puz
zled and sensible of his responsibility. Then in simple
language, that they might understand, he related the
Bible stories of the Creation, of the commandments, of
the advent of Christ and his crucifixion.
" Yes," answered Clark to their interrogatories, " a
teacher shall be sent with the Book."
Just as change of diet and climate had prostrated Lewis
and Clark with sickness among the Nez Perces twenty-
five years before, so now the Nez Perces fell sick in St.
Louis. The Summer was hotter than any they had
known in their cool northland. Dr. Farrar was called.
Mrs. Clark herself brought them water and medicine as
they lay burning with fever in the Council House. They
were very grateful for her attentions, — " the beautiful
squaw of the Red Head Chief."
But neither medicine nor nursing could save the aged
Black Eagle.
426 THE CONQUEST
" The most mournful procession I ever saw/' said a
young woman of that day, " was when those three In
dians followed their dead companion to the grave."
His name is recorded at the St. Louis cathedral as
"Keepeelele, buried October 31, 1831," a " ne Perce de
la tribu des Choponeek, nation appellee Tete Plate."
" Keepeelele," the Nez Perces of to-day say " was the
old man, the Black Eagle." Sometimes they called him
the " Speaking Eagle," as the orator on occasions.
Still the other Indians remained ill.
" I have been sent by my nation to examine lands for
removal to the West," said William Walker, chief of the
Wyandots.
William Walker was the son of a white man, stolen
as a child from Kentucky and brought up by the Indians.
His mother was also the descendant of a stolen white
girl. Young William, educated at the Upper Sandusky
mission, became a chief.
The semi-Christian Wyandots desired to follow their
friends to the West. Sitting there in the office, transact
ing business, Governor Clark spoke of the Flathead Nez
Perces.
" I have never seen a Flathead, but have often heard
of them," answered William Walker. Curiosity prompted
him to step into the next room. Small in size, delicately
formed, and of exact symmetry except the flattened head,
they lay there parched with fever.
1 Their diet at home consists chiefly of vegetables and
fish," said the Governor. " As a nation they have the
fewest vices of any tribe on the continent of America."
November 10, ten days after the burial of Black Eagle,
Colonel Audrain of St. Charles, a member of * the Legis
lature, died also at Governor Clark's house. His body
was conveyed to St. Charles in the first hearse ever
seen there. On December 25, Christmas Day, 1831,
Mrs. Clark herself died after a brief illness.
There was sickness all over St. Louis. Was it a
beginning of that strange new malady that by the
next Spring had grown into a devouring plague, — the
dreaded Asiatic cholera?
FOUR INDIAN AMBASSADORS 427
At the bedside of his dead wife, Governor Clark sat,
holding her waxen hand, with their little six-year-old
son, Jefferson, in his lap. " My child, you have no
mother now," said the father with streaming tears.
After the funeral, nothing was recorded in Clark's letter-
books for some days, and when he began again, the
handwriting was that of an aged man.
None mourned this sad event more than the tender
hearted Nez Perces, who remained until Spring.
When the new steamer Yellowstone of the Ameri
can Fur Company, set out for its first great trip up the
Missouri, Governor Clark made arrangements to send
the chiefs home to their country. A day later, the
other old Indian, The-Man-of-the-Morning, died and
was buried near St. Charles.
Among other passengers on that steamer were Pierre
Chouteau the younger and George Catlin, the Indian
artist, who was setting out to visit the Mandans.
" You will find the Mandans a strange people and half
white," said Governor Clark to his friend the artist, as
he gave him his passport into the Indian country.
On the way up the river Catlin noticed the two young
Nez Perces, and painted their pictures.
As if pursued by a strange fatality, at the mouth of
the Yellowstone No-Horns-On-His-Head died, — Rabbit-
Skin-Leggings alone was left to carry the word from St.
Louis.
Earlier than ever that year the Nez Perces had crossed
the snowy trails of the Bitter Root to the buffalo coun
try in the Yellowstone and Judith Basin.
" For are not our messengers coming? "
And there, camped with their horses and their lodges,
watching, Rabbit-Skin-Leggings met them and shouted
afar off, — "A man shall be sent with the Book."
Back over the hills and the mountains the message
flew, — " A man shall be sent with the Book."
Every year after that the Nez Perces went over to the
east, looking for the man with the Book.
Nearly a year elapsed before William Walker got back
from his explorations and wrote a public letter giving
428 THE CONQUEST
an account of the Nez Perces in their search for the
Book. His account of meeting them in General Clark's
office, and of the object of their errand, created a tre
mendous sensation.
Religious committees called upon General Clark, let
ters were written, and to one and all he said, " That was
the sole object of their journey, — to obtain the white
man's Book of Heaven."
The call rang like a trumpet summons through the
churches. The next year, 1834, the Methodists sent
Jason Lee and three others to Oregon. Two years later
followed Whitman and Spalding and their brides, the
first white women to cross the Rocky Mountains.
" A famine threatens the Upper Missouri," was the
news brought back by that steamer Yellowstone in 1832.
" The buffaloes have disappeared! "
The herds, chased so relentlessly on the Missouri, were
struggling through the Bitter Root Mountains, to ap
pear in vast throngs on the plains of Idaho.
Even Europe read and commented on that wonderful
first journey of a steamer up the Missouri, as later the
world hailed the ascent of the Nile and the Yukon.
It was a great journey. Amazed Indians everywhere
had watched the monster, puffing and snorting, with
steam and whistles, and a continued roar of cannon for
half an hour at every fur fort and every Indian village.
" The thunder canoe ! " Redmen fell on the ground
and cried to the Great Spirit. Some shot their dogs and
horses as sacrifices.
At last, even the Blackfeet were reached. The British
tried to woo them back to the Saskatchewan at Fort
Edmonton, but eventually they tumbled over one an
other to trade with the Fire Boat that annually climbed
the Missouri staircase.
BLACK HAWK 429
XX
BLACK HAWK
THE Roman faces of Black Hawk and Keokuk were
often seen in St. Louis, where the chiefs came to
consult Clark in regard to their country.
" Keokuk signed away my lands," said Black Hawk.
He had never been satisfied with that earliest treaty made
while Lewis and Clark were absent beyond the mountains.
For thirty years Black Hawk had paid friendly visits
to Chouteau and sold him furs. More often he was at
Maiden consulting his " British Father." Schooled by
Tecumseh, the disloyal Black Hawk was wholly British.
Fort Armstrong had been built at Rock Island for the
protection of the border. Those whitewashed walls and
that tower perched on a high cliff over the Mississippi
reminded the traveller up the Father of Waters seventy
years ago of some romantic castle on the Rhine. And it
was erected for the same reason that were the castles of
the Rhine. Not safe were the traders who went up and
down the great river, not safe were the emigrants seeking
entrance to Rock River, — for Black Hawk watched the
land.
The white settlements had already come up to the edge
of Black Hawk's field.
" No power is vested in me to stop the progress of
settlements on ceded lands, and I have no means of in
ducing the Indians to move but persuasion, which has
little weight with those chiefs who have always been under
British influence," said Clark in 1829.
Again and again Clark wrote to the Secretary of Wrar
on this subject. The policy of moving the tribes west
ward stirred the wrath of Black Hawk.
"The Sacs never sold their country!"
But the leader of the " British band " had lost his
voice in the council.
43o THE CONQUEST
" Who is Black Hawk ? " asked General Gaines at Rock
Island. " Is he a chief? By what right does he speak? "
" My father, you ask who is Black Hawk. I will tell
you who I am. I am a Sac. My father was a Sac. I am
a warrior. So was my father. Ask those young men who
have followed me to battle and they will tell you who
Black Hawk is. Provoke our people to war and you will
learn who Black Hawk is."
Haughtily gathering up his robes, the chief and his
followers stalked over to Canada for advice. In his ab
sence Keokuk made the final cession to the United States
and prepared to move beyond the Mississippi. Back like
a whirlwind came the Hawk, —
" Sold the Sac village, sold your country! "
" Keokuk," he whispered fiercely in his ear, " give
mines, give everything, but keep our cornfields and our
dead."
" Cross the Mississippi," begged Keokuk.
" I will stay by the graves of my fathers," reiterated
the stubborn and romantic Black Hawk.
The Indians left the silver rivers of Illinois, their sugar
groves, and bee trees with regret. No wonder the chief's
heart clung to his native village, among dim old woods
of oak and walnut, and orchards of plum and crab. For
generations there had they tilled their Indian gardens.
From his watchtower on Rock River the old chief
scanned the country. Early in the Spring of 1832 he dis
covered a scattering train of whites moving into the
beloved retreat.
" Quick, let us plant once more our cornfields."
In a body Black Hawk and his British band with their
women and children came pulling up Rock River in their
canoes. The whites were terrified.
" Black Hawk has invaded Illinois," was the word
sent by Governor Reynolds to Clark at St. Louis. Troops
moved out from Jefferson Barracks.
" Go," said Governor Clark to Felix St. Vrain, his
Sac interpreter. " Warn Black Hawk to withdraw across
the Mississippi."
St. Vrain sped away, — to be shot delivering his mes-
BLACK HAWK 431
sage. Then followed the war, the flight and chase and
battle of Bad Axe, and the capture of Black Hawk.
Wabasha's Sioux fell upon the last fleeing remnant, so
that few of Black Hawk's band were left to tell the tale.
" Farewell, my nation ! " the old chief cried. " Black
Hawk tried to save you and avenge your wrongs. He
drank the blood of some of the whites. He has been
taken prisoner and his plans are stopped. He can do no
more. He is near his end. His sun is setting and he
will rise no more. Farewell to Black Hawk."
In chains Black Hawk and his prophet, Wabokeskiek,
were brought by Jefferson Davis to St. Louis. As his
steamboat passed Rock Island, his old home, Black Hawk
wept like a child.
" It was our garden," he said, " such as the white
people have near their villages. I spent many happy days
on this island. A good spirit dwelt in a cave of rocks
where your fort now stands. The noise of the guns has
driven him away."
It hurt Clark to see his old friend dragging a ball and
chain at Jefferson Barracks. He seldom went there. But
the little Kennerly children carried him presents and
kinnikinick for his pipe.
There were guests at the house of Clark, — Maxi
milian, Prince of Wied, and his artist, — when early in
April of 1833 a deputation of Sacs and Foxes headed by
Keokuk came down in long double canoes to intercede for
Black Hawk, and with them, haggard and worn from long
wanderings, came Singing Bird, the wife of Black Hawk.
With scientific interest Maximilian looked at them,
dressed in red, white, and green blankets, with shaven
heads except a tuft behind, long and straight and black
with a braided deer's tail at the end. They were typical
savages with prominent noses and eagle plumes, wampum
shells like tassels in their ears, and lances of sword-blades
fastened to poles in their hands.
" This is a great Chief from over the Big Water, come
to see you," said Clark introducing the Prince.
" Hah ! " said the Indians, giving the Prince the right
hand of friendship and scanning him steadily.
432 THE CONQUEST
Bodmer, the artist, brought out his palette. Keokuk
in green blanket, with a medal on his heart and a long
calumet ornamented with eagle feathers in his hand, was
ready to pose.
" Hah ! " laughed the Indians as stroke by stroke they
saw their chief stand forth on canvas, even to the brass
necklace and bracelets on throat and wrists. " Great
Medicine ! "
" I have chartered the Warrior to go down to Jeffer
son Barracks," said Clark.
Striking their hands to their mouths, the Indians gave
the war whoop, and stepped on board the " big fire canoe."
Intent, each animated, fiery, dark-brown eye watched the
engine hissing and roaring down to the Barracks.
" If you will keep a watchful eye on Black Hawk I will
intercede for him," said Clark.
" I will watch him," promised Keokuk.
Clark left them for a moment, and then led in a little
old man of seventy years, with gray hair, light yellow
face, and a curved Roman nose.
It was an affecting sight when Keokuk stepped for
ward to embrace Black Hawk. Keokuk, subtle, dignified,
in splendid array of deer-skin and bear-claws, grasped
the hand of his fallen rival. Poor dethroned old Black
Hawk ! In a plain suit of buckskin and a string of wam
pum in his ears, he stood alone, fanning himself with the
tail of a black hawk.
Keokuk tried to get him released. Often had he visited
Clark on that errand, but no, — Black Hawk was sum
moned to Washington and went. Antoine Le Claire, son
of old Antoine, was his interpreter.
Released, presently, he made a triumphal tour home,
applauded by thousands along the route, even as Lafayette
had been a few years before. Not so the Roman con
querors treated their captives! But Black Hawk came
home to Keokuk to die.
The defeat of Black Hawk opened Iowa to settlement,
and a day later prairie schooners overran the Black Hawk
Purchase.
On the staff of General Atkinson when he marched out
BLACK HAWK 433
of Jefferson Barracks for the Black Hawk War, was
Meriwether Lewis Clark, now a graduate of West Point,
and his cousin Robert Anderson, grandson of Clark's
sister Eliza.
In the hurry and the heat of the march one day, Lieu
tenant Clark, riding from the rear back to the General,
became enclosed by the troops of cavalry and had to ride
slowly. By his side on a small horse he noticed a long-
legged, dark-skinned soldier, with black hair hanging in
clusters around his neck, a volunteer private. Admiringly
the private gazed at Clark's fine new uniform and splen
didly accoutred horse, a noble animal provided by his
father at St. Louis.
Young Clark spoke to the soldier of awkward and un
prepossessing appearance, whose witticisms and gift for
stories kept his comrades in a state of merriment. He
proved very inquisitive.
" The son of Governor Clark of the Lewis and Clark
expedition, did you say ? "
" Yes."
"And related to all those great people?"
" Yes," with a laugh.
They chatted until the ranks began to thin.
" I must ride on," but feeling an interest in the lank,
long-haired soldier, Lieutenant Clark turned again, —
" Where are you from and to what troop do you
belong?"
" I am an Illinois volunteer."
" Well, now, tell me your name, and I will bid you
good bye."
" My name is Abraham Lincoln, and I have not a re
lation in the world."
The next time they met, Meriwether Lewis Clark was
marching through the streets of Washington City with
other prisoners in Lee's surrendered army. And the
President on the White House steps was Abraham Lin
coln. The cousin of Meriwether Lewis Clark, Robert
Anderson, hero of Fort Sumter, stood by Lincoln's side,
with tears in his eyes.
Weeks before, when the land was ringing with his
28
434 THE CONQUEST
valour, the President had congratulated him and asked,
" Do you remember me? "
" .No, I never met you before."
" Yes," answered the President, " you are the officer
that swore me in as a volunteer private in the Black Hawk
War."
The next day the assassin's bullet laid low the mar
tyred Lincoln; none mourned him more than Meri-
wether Lewis Clark, for in that President he had known
a friend.
XXI
A GREAT LIFE ENDS
USKOSKY, man, you tie my queue so tight I
cannot shut my eyes ! "
With both hands up to his head Governor
Clark rallied his Polish attendant, who of all things was
particular about his friend's appearance. For Ruskosky
never considered himself a servant, nor did Clark.
Ruskosky was an old soldier of Pulaski, a great swords
man, a gentleman, of courtly address and well educated,
the constant companion of Governor Clark after the
death of York.
" Come, let us walk, Ruskosky."
A narrow black ribbon was tied to the queue, the long
black cloth cloak was brushed and the high broad-brim
hat adjusted, the sword cane with buckhorn handle and
rapier blade was grasped, and out they started.
Children stared at the ancient queue and small clothes.
The oldest American in St. Louis, Governor Clark had
come to be regarded as a " gentleman of the old school."
A sort of halo hung around his adventures. Beloved,
honoured, trusted, revered, his prominent nose and firm-
set lips, his thin complexion in which the colour came and
went, seemed somehow to belong to the Revolution. He
A GREAT LIFE ENDS 435
was locally regarded as a great literary man, for had not
the journals of his expedition been given to the world?
And now, too, delvers in historic lore began to realise
what George Rogers Clark had done. Eighteen different
authors desired to write his life, among them Madison,
Chief Justice Marshall, and Washington Irving. But
the facts could not be found. Irving sent his nephew to
inquire of Governor Clark at St. Louis. But the papers
were scattered, to be collected only by the industry of
historical students later.
" Governor Clark is a fine soldier-like looking man,
tall and thin," Irving' s nephew reported to his uncle.
" His hair is white, but he seems to be as hardy and vig
orous as ever, and speaks of his exposures and hardships
with a zest that shows that the spirit of the old explorer
is not quenched."
Children danced on an old carriage in the orchard.
" Uncle Clark, when did you first have this carriage?
When was it new ? "
The chivalrous and romantic friendship of his youth
came back to the Governor, and his eyes filled with tears.
" Children, that carriage belonged to Meriwether
Lewis. In the settlement of his estate, I bought it.
Many a time have we ridden in it together. That is the
carriage that met Judy Hancock when she landed at St.
Louis, the first American bride, a quarter of a century
ago. Many a vicissitude has it encountered since, in
journeyings through woods and prairies. It is old now,
but it has a history."
In his later years Governor Clark travelled, made a tour
of the Lakes, and visited New York, Boston, Buffalo,
Cleveland, Sandusky, and Detroit.
"Hull?" said Clark at Detroit. "He was' not a
coward, but afraid for the people's sake of the cruelty of
the Indians."
One day Governor Clark came ashore from a steamer
on the Ohio and stood at the mouth of the Hockhocking
where Dunmore had his camp in 1774. The battle of
Point Pleasant? that was ancient history. Most of the
residents in that region had never heard of it, and looked
436 THE CONQUEST
upon the old gentleman in a queue as a relic of the mound-
builders.
With wide-eyed wonder they listened again to the story
of that day when civilisation set its first milestone beyond
the Alleghanies.
When the thundering cannon in 1837 announced the
return of a fur convoy from the Yellowstone, Governor
Clark expected a messenger.
" They haf put the sand over him," explained a French
man. " Yes, he is dead and buried."
" And my Mandan? "
' There are no more Mandans."
Clark looked at the trader in surprise.
" Small-pox."
The cheek of the Red Head paled.
Small-pox! In 1800 it swept from Omaha to Clatsop
leaving a trail of bones. Thirty years later ten thousand
Pawnees, Otoes, and Missouris perished. And now, de
spite all precautions, it had broken out on the upper
Missouri.
In six weeks the wigwams of the Mandans were deso
late. Out of sixteen hundred souls but thirty-one re
mained. Arikara, Minnetaree, Ponca, Assiniboine, sank
before the contagion. The Sioux survived only be
cause they lived not in fixed villages and were roaming
uncontaminated.
Blackfeet along the Marias left their lodges standing
with the dead in them, and never returned. The Crows
abandoned their stricken ones, and fled to the mountains.
Across the border beseeching Indians carried the havoc
to Hudson's Bay, to Athabasca, and the Yukon. Over
half a continent terrified tribes burnt their towns, slaugh
tered their families, pierced their own hearts or flung
themselves from precipices.
Redmen yet unstricken poured into St. Louis imploring
the white man's magic. Clark engaged physicians. Day
after day vaccinating, vaccinating, they sat in their offices,
saving the life of hundreds. He sent out agents with
vaccine to visit the tribes, but the superstitious savages
gathered up their baggage and scattered, —
A GREAT LIFE ENDS 437
" White men have come with small-pox in a bottle."
With this last great shock, the decimation of the tribes,
upon him, Clark visibly declined.
" My children," he said to his sons, " I want to sleep
in sight and sound of the Mississippi."
When the summons came, September i, 1838, in the
sixty-eighth year of his age, Meriwether Lewis Clark and
his wife were with him, the deputy, James Kennedy and
his wife, Elise, and old Ruskosky, inconsolable.
With great pomp and solemnity his funeral was cele
brated, as had been that of his brother at Louisville
twenty years before. Both were buried as soldiers, with
minute guns and honours of war. In sight of the Ohio,
George Rogers Clark sleeps, and below the grave of Wil
liam Clark sweeps the Mississippi, roaring, swirling, bear
ing the life-blood of the land they were the first to explore.
The Sacs, with Keokuk at their head, marched in the
long funeral train of their Red Head Father and wept
genuine tears of desolation. No more, dressed in their
best, did the Indians sing and dance through the streets
of St. Louis, receiving gifts from door to door. The
friend of the redmen was dead. St. Louis ceased to be
the Mecca of their pilgrimages ; no more their gala cos
tumes enlivened the market ; they disappeared.
For more than forty years William Clark had been iden
tified with St. Louis, — had become a part of its history
and of the West.
October 3, 1838, a few days after Clark, Black Hawk,
too, breathed his last in his lodge, and was buried like
the Sac chieftains of old, sitting upright, in the uniform
given him by President Jackson, with his hand resting
on the cane presented by Henry Clay.
He, too, said, " I like to look upon the Mississippi. I
have looked upon it from a child. I love that beautiful
river. My home has always been upon its banks." And
there they buried him. Every day at sunset travellers
along that road heard the weird heart-broken wail of
Singing Bird, the widow of Black Hawk.
438 THE CONQUEST
XXII
THE NEW WEST
FOUR years after the death of Governor Clark
began the rush to Oregon. Dr. Lewis F. Linn,
Senator from Missouri, and grandson of William
Linn, the trusted lieutenant of George Rogers Clark, in
troduced a bill in Congress offering six hundred and
forty acres of land to every family that would emigrate
to Oregon. The Linns came to Missouri with Daniel
Boone, and with the Boones they looked ever west!
west!
" Six hundred and forty acres of land ! A solid square
mile of God's earth, clear down to the centre!" men
exclaimed in amaze. While Ohio was still new, and the
Mississippi Valley billowed her carpets of untrodden
bloom, an eagle's flight beyond, civilisation leaped to
Oregon.
From ferries where Kansas City and Omaha now
stand they started, crossing the Platte by fords, by
waggon-beds lashed together, and on rafts, darkening
the stream for days. Before their buffalo hunters,
innumerable herds made the earth tremble where Kan
sas-Nebraska cities are to-day. In 1843 Marcus Whit
man piloted the first waggon train through to the
Columbia.
" A thousand people ? Starving did you say? Lord!
Lord! They must have help to-night," exclaimed Dr.
McLoughlin, the old white-haired Hudson's Bay trader
at Fort Vancouver.
" Man the boats ! People are starving at the Dalles ! "
and the noble-hearted representative of a rival govern
ment sent out his provision-laden bateaux to rescue the
perishing Americans, who in spite of storms and tempests
were gliding down the great Columbia as sixty years be
fore their fathers floated down the Indian-haunted Ohio.
THE NEW WEST 439
And Indians were here, with tomahawks ready.
" Let us kill these Bostons ! "
McLoughlin heard the word, and shook the speaker as
a terrier shakes a rat.
" Dogs, you shall be punished ! "
In his anxiety lest harm should come to the approach
ing Americans, all night long, his white hair wet in the
rain, Dr. McLoughlin stood watching the boats coming
down the Columbia, and building great bonfires where
Lewis and Clark had camped in 1806. Women and little
children and new-born babes slept in the British fur-
trader's fort. Anglo-Saxon greeted Anglo-Saxon in the
conquest of the world, to march henceforward hand in
hand for ever.
Among the emigrants on the plains in 1846, was Al-
phonso Boone, the son of Jesse, the son of Daniel. Sev
eral grown-up Boone boys were there, and the beautiful
Chloe and her younger sisters.
Chloe Boone rode a thorough-bred mare, a descendant
of the choicest Boone stock, from the old Kentucky blue-
grass region. Mounted upon her high-stepping mare,
Chloe and her sisters and other young people of the train
rode on ahead of the slow-going line of waggons and
oxen. Gay was the laughter, and merry the songs, that
rang out on the bright morning air.
Francis Parkman, the great historian, then a young
man just out of college, was on the plains that year, col
lecting material for his books. Now and then they met
parties of soldiers going to the Mexican War, and many
a boy in blue turned to catch a glimpse of the sweet girl
faces in Chloe' s train.
Happily they rode in the Spring on the plains; more
slowly when the heats of Summer came and the sides of
the Rocky Mountains grew steep and rough ; and slower
still in the parched lands beyond, when the woodwork of
the waggons began to shrink, and the worn-out animals
to faint and fall.
" So long a journey ! " said Chloe. Six months it
took. Clothes wore out, babes were born, and people
died.
440 THE CONQUEST
They came into Oregon by the southern route, guided
by Daniel Boone's old compass, the one given him by
Dunmore to bring in the surveyors from the Falls of the
Ohio seventy-two years before.
The Fall rains had set in. The Umpqua River was
swollen, — eighteen times from bank to bank Chloe
forded, in getting down Umpqua canyon.
'' We shall have to leave the waggons and heavy bag
gage with a guard," said Colonel Boone, " and hurry on
to the settlements."
They reached the Willamette Valley, pitched their
tents where Corvallis now stands, and that Winter, in
a little log cabin, Chloe Boone taught the first school
ever conducted by a woman outside of the missions in
Oregon.
Leaving the girls, Colonel Boone went back after the
waggons. Alas ! the guard was killed, the camp was
looted, and Daniel Boone's old compass was gone for
ever. Its work was done.
Alphonso Boone built a mansion near the present capi
tal city of Salem and here Chloe married the Governor,
George L. Curry, and for years beside the old Boone
fireside the Governor's wife extended the hospitalities
of the rising State. Albert Gallatin Boone camped on
the site of Denver twenty years before Denver was,
and negotiated the sale of Colorado from the Indians
to the United States. John C. Boone, son of Nathan
Boone, explored a new cut-off and became a pioneer
of California. James Madison Boone drove stakes in
Texas.
What years had passed since the expedition of
Lewis and Clark! It seemed like a bygone event, but
one who had shared its fortunes still lived on and
on, — our old friend, Patrick Gass. In the War of
1812, above the roaring Falls of Niagara, Sergeant
Gass spiked the enemy's cannon at the battle of Lundy's
Lane. Years went on. A plain unpretentious citizen,
Patrick worked at his trade in Wellsburg and raised his
family.
In 1856 Patrick Gass headed a delegation of gray-
THE NEW WEST 441
haired veterans of the War of 1812 to Washington, and
was everywhere lionised as the last of the men of Lewis
and Clark.
On July 4, 1861, the land was aflame over the firing
on Fort Sumter. All Wellsburg with her newly en
listed regiments for the war was gathered at Apple Pie
Ridge to celebrate the day.
"Where is Patrick Gass?"
A grand carriage was sent for him, and on the shoul
ders of the boys in blue he was brought in triumph to the
platform.
" Speech! speech! "
And the speech of his life Patrick Gass made that day,
for his country and the Union. The simple, honest old
hero brought tears to every eye, with a glimpse of the
splendid drama of Lewis and Clark. Again they saw
those early soldier-boys bearing the flag across the
Rockies, suffering starvation and danger and almost
death, to carry their country to the sea.
" But me byes, it 's not a picnic ye 're goin' to, — oh,
far from it ! No ! no ! 'T will be hard fur ye when ye
come marchin' back lavin' yer comrades lyin' far from
home and friends, but there is One to look to, who has
made and kept our country."
It seemed the applause would never cease, with cheer
ing and firing of cannon.
" Stay! stay! " cried the people. " Sit up on the table
and let us have our banquet around you with the big
flag floating over your head." In an instant Pat was
down.
" Far enough is far enough ! " he cried, " and be the
divil, will yez try to make sport of mesilf ? " Excitedly
the modest old soldier slipped away.
The war ended. A railroad crossed the plains. Ore
gon and California were States. Alaska was bought.
Still Pat lived on, until 1870, when he fell asleep, at the
age of ninety-nine, the last of the heroic band of Lewis
and Clark.
William Walker, who gave to the world the story of
the Nez Perces, led his Wyandots into Kansas, and, with
442 THE CONQUEST
the first white settlers, organising a Provisional Govern
ment after the plan of Oregon, became himself the first
Governor of Kansas-Nebraska.
Oh, Little Crow ! Little Crow ! what crimes were com
mitted in thy name ! In the midst of the war, 1862, Little
Crow the third arose against the white settlers of Min
nesota in one of the most frightful massacres recorded
in history. Then came Sibley's expedition sweeping on
west, opening the Dakotas and Montana.
The Indian? He fought and was vanquished. How
we are beginning to love our Indians, now that we fear
them no longer! No wild man ever so captured the im
agination of the world. With inherent nobility, courage
to the border of destruction, patriotism to the death, abso
lutely refusing to be enslaved, he stands out the most per
fect picture of primeval man. We might have tamed him
but we had not time. The movement was too swift, the
pressure behind made the white men drivers as the In
dians had driven before. Civilisation demands repose,
safety. And until repose and safety came we could do
no effective work for the Indian. We of to-day have
lived the longest lives, for we have seen a continent
transformed.
We have forgotten that a hundred years ago Briton
and Spaniard and Frenchman were hammering at our
gates ; forgotten that the Indian beleaguered our wooden
castles ; forgotten that wolves drummed with their paws
on our cabin doors, snapping their teeth like steel traps,
while the mother hushed the wheel within and children
crouched beneath the floor.
O mothers of a mighty past, thy sons are with us
yet, fighting new battles, planning new conquests, for
law, order, and justice.
Where rolls the Columbia and where the snow-peaks
of Hood, Adams, Jefferson, Rainier, and St. Helens look
down, a metropolis has arisen in the very Multnomah
where Clark took his last soundings. Northward, Seattle
sits on her Puget sea, southward San Francisco smiles
from her golden gate, Spanish no more. Over the route
where Lewis and Clark toiled slowly a hundred years
THE NEW WEST 443
ago, lo ! in three days the traveller sits beside the sunset.
Five transcontinental lines bear the rushing armies west
ward, ever westward into the sea. Bewildered a moment
they pause, then turn — to the Conquest of the Poles and
the Tropics. The frontiersman? He is building Nome
City under the Arctic: he is hewing the forests of the
Philippines.
THE END
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